Title: Use Somebody

Word Count: 1,439

Rating: PG-13 for the language. May change in the future.

Warnings/Spoilers: Goes AU middle of season 2. Just after Duncan leaves and Logan and Hannah started dating.

Summary: Being alone at lunch is an oddity as of late.

Official Disclaimer: All Veronica Mars characters and plots belong to Rob Thomas and the CW. I do not hold stock either the man or the company. Veronica Mars, Logan Echolls, and any other character featured are NOT mine.

Being alone at lunch is an oddity as of late.

Apparently her boyfriend fleeing the country with his dead ex-girlfriend's baby makes Veronica the popular person to spend time with. That or the person next to her lost the straw draw on the day's suicide watch. So when Mac tells her that Cassidy is going to make an attempt at introducing her to the '09er table and Wallace is eating lunch with the basketball team, she's more than a little relieved. She gets time to herself again.

It only lasts five minutes.

Less than that if she thinks about it. There had been a blonde head staring at her from one of the sports tables ever since she entered the quad and when she sat down, she could feel the eyes getting closer.

The only thing worse than knowing how and why Hannah Griffith exists is having her plop down at the lunch table in front of you.

Veronica has no idea how she got her name, and she's seriously thinking about tazering the moron that pointed her out. By the semi-evil smile gracing Dick's features, she's sure that the elder Casablancas' just made her shit list.

Sadly though it doesn't make what's happening right before her eyes any better.

"You're Veronica, right?"

For a split second, she contemplates the look that is going to cross Dick's features as a thousand volts of electricity shoots through his body. Then she realizes that Hannah's still watching her with that same sickeningly sweet look on her face. The pen dangling from her fingers drops to the notebook with a dull thud and she turns slightly. "I'm Veronica." She confirms slowly, nodding slightly. "And you're Hannah."

"You've heard of me?" Her face drops the smile, but she's still far too hopeful for anyone's liking.

"It's hard not to." The hopeful look wavers, and somehow Veronica finds she's equal parts proud and ashamed of herself. After all, it's not Hannah's fault that her boyfriend used to be Veronica's. Or that there are at least five people out on the terrace at that very moment that knows he's just using her. "What can I do for you, Hannah?"

It's her turn to throw a look to the '09er table. Whether to reassure herself that said boyfriend was still in the journalism room finishing an article or wishing herself elsewhere is really anyone's guess. "I need your help…"

It's official, or so Veronica thinks. The earth has begun its backwards rotation, and she's about to down the entire bottle she's been using for her 'help me' drinking game. "You need my help?" The words come out slowly, and she chokes on the breath she didn't realize that she's been holding.

And out of the corner of her eye she notices that Dick suddenly looks a little worried too.

So she does the only thing she can think of.

Veronica laughs.

It's not loud and maniacal, nothing like what she keeps teasing Weevil with, and not the kind of laugh that her ex-boyfriend used to joke you about. No, not that one. The one that fled the country with his illegitimate child. She should be better about labeling her boyfriends by now. There have only been four.

And suddenly her laughing stops and she looks back at Hannah, who has enough sense to look relatively concerned.

"You need my help?" Damn the echo in her head. "Hannah, you're a nice girl, sickeningly sweet most of the time actually." When her eyes furrow, Veronica has to hold off another laugh. "You make excellent grades and you listen to your parents, and the last time anyone talked to me, I heard how terrific you were from half the pep squad." Hannah beams then, and she has to resist the urge to smack her. "And on top of it all, you're dating the guy who comes a close second to the Casablancas' brothers in the 'I'm legally emancipated and have more money than God' category in school. What could you possibly need my help with?"

Hannah smiles carefully as she looks down at her purse and water and not for the first time Veronica wonders if this was payback for the spineless jellyfish she had been back when Lilly was still alive. Could it be possible that the Queen of Mean herself set this one up wherever she was?

"It's about Logan…"

And for the second time that day she feels like it's her who's been tazered.

"Logan…" Again Veronica repeats her, all the while doing a wonderful impression of a landed fish if she does say so herself. She doesn't really have anything to follow that, so she repeats his name again, this time holding out the first syllable just a little longer than usual. She glanced around the quad rather quickly and then turned back to Hannah. "Okay, I'll bite. What's wrong with Logan?"

There was a pause. As if Hannah was weighing her odds about being there. Well, she had already sat down. The hard part had been over. "He's…" Her head shakes and she swallows back the sentence that's clogging her throat. "He's changed a lot."

And Veronica doesn't even know where to start. "He's changed?" She asks carefully. Hannah starts nodding almost immediately and Veronica sighs. "Changed how?"

"He got a letter from some guy last week and…" Her bottom lip gets pulled between her teeth as she thinks. "He's different."

Could she be any more vague? "He's gotten quieter? Louder? He's drinking more? He's stopped altogether? You have to give me something here." Hannah stares at her for a second and Veronica runs a hand through her hair. "And do you know who the letter was from?"

"He threw the envelope away without even reading it." She shrugged. "And he's been quiet. Like really quiet. He doesn't want to eat out here with anyone anymore." Weighing her options again, she leans into the table. "He barely touches me." Hannah's eyes were wide as she attempted to whisper.

Veronica had to bite back a laugh. So that was Little Miss Sunshine's problem. Logan's gone from raging sex god to barely there, and she's freaking. Fortunately there were only two things that Veronica knew of that could turn his libido off like a light. Unfortunately, neither were things that she could tell his impressionable girlfriend.

For half of a second she thought about lying to Hannah. It would have been entertaining to make something up about erectile dysfunction or some sort of drug usage. Then again Veronica had just recently found out that her father was a coke addict working for the Fitzpatrick's so it might not have been the best of ideas. So instead she takes a sip of the soda that she had snagged from Cassidy's tray and tries to smile.

"I'm sure it's nothing." She says after a moment. "Logan goes through days just like everyone else." Veronica had to pat herself on the back. She actually sounded calm and caring. Two things that she didn't equate with Logan much anymore. "I'm sure he'll be back to his normal wonderful self in a day or two."

But Hannah didn't look convinced. "I don't know." She whispers, toying with the end of her braid. Veronica almost told her that she was creating split ends. "He's been like this for a while."

"A week doesn't constitute a while." She tells the other blonde quickly, and when Hannah glares at the table she shakes her head. "Hannah, I know Logan, and he's probably fine."

"Could you…" The freshman looks back to the 09er table and Veronica laughs as Dick throws her a weak smile. "Could you talk to him?"

The coke burns coming up her nose, and Veronica immediately reaches up to keep it from splattering on her notebook. "Excuse me?"

"Do you think you could talk to him?" Hannah's looking at her earnestly now, almost pleading without words. "You said you knew him, could you at least try?"

Veronica's smile is back again, a bit less indulgent than before. "If I say yes, will you walk away?" Off Hannah's frown, Veronica nods to Dick. "It's not helping your situation with Logan that most of his cronies are watching us talk."

Realization dawns quickly and Hannah nods. "So you'll do it?"

"I will attempt a conversation with Logan." Veronica promises slowly. "Now off with you."

"Thank you!" Hannah moves to take Veronica's hand and freezes. "Thank you!"

She watches the younger girl leave and then drops her head to the tabletop. From the back of her mind she would swear she could hear Lilly laughing.