A New Veronica: a Season 4 fan fiction

Disclaimer: Once again, I do not own Veronica Mars. Rob Thomas does and hopefully he will convince a studio and the actors make a movie soon.

Author's Note: So this is basically the continuation of the unaired premiere of season 4. I loved it so much! It gave me millions of ideas and I had to sleep on it, to boil it down to only a few hundred. Please Please review!

The Los Angeles FBI Headquarters was a long way from Hearst College. Not it distance, but in personal progress. Veronica had to take a deep breath before getting off the elevator. She walked past the two agents who got into the FBI through nepotism and language skills; or so she assumed, considering the fact that they checked her out and immediately dismissed her as a non-threat. That was their big mistake numero uno.

They're going to be late. Second mistake; they didn't do their homework. Special Agent Hendricks liked punctuality. Always do your research. She walked into the conference room, and saw her rival from Quantico. Callie Farmer. She was a real challenge to work with, but Veronica liked and respected her. They were friendly rivals. Veronica sat down and almost to the second, her new boss walked in. He looked slightly scruffy; he hadn't shaved in weeks. Right away, he started to speak.

He mentioned the new faces in the room, new agents from Quantico. Hendricks said that the older agents should make use of them- "they're young and tireless." She and Callie glanced over at the late newbies and Veronica hid her smirk. Hendricks started to talk about the Book Rate Bomber, and identified the main suspect, a Doctor Feodor Sherbock, who'd last been spotted ten days ago.

Hendricks asked a young agent (not a new agent, just young), "Carter, tell us what you've got on Harturian."

"We're getting nothing on the phone and most of his business is done in a booth at his strip club," he paused, "so we need someone on the inside, posing as a waitress, or as an exotic dancer."

Hendricks asked, "Any volunteers?"

Someone coughed, "Send in one of the newbies."

Veronica and Callie looked at each, measuring their response, Veronica finally quipped, "I'm a terrible dancer."

"We'll work on that," Hendricks said.

Hendricks started talking about the New Horizons reform school for bad girls, "we've received a report that the principal is sexually abusing the young ladies, so we're gonna need someone who's ready to go back to high school."

There was a pause of silence as the older agents looked over at Veronica and Callie.

Veronica asked, "So the strip club, is that just topless, or fully nude?"

She caught Carter looking over at her. He smirked. He reminded her of Don Lamb, ironically, but obviously, he had to be smarter than the now deceased Sheriff of Neptune.

Callie raised her hand, telling the other agents, "I'll go in at the strip club."

Veronica volunteered for the New Horizons assignment. And Carter was still looking at her, with a slow curl of the lips, his blue eyes amused. He was very attractive, in the way, that guys know that they're attractive. Veronica slightly tilted her head, and Carter stopped staring at her. A young blond man came into the room, breathless. Hendricks looked up.

"Ah, I thought we had another one. Thanks so much for joining us, son."

"Sorry, sir. I didn't realize L.A. had so much bad traffic."

Veronica could feel a spurt of surprise. Great, what's he doing here?

BREAK LINE _ BREAK LINE

Principal Harris said behind his desk, and already Veronica wanted to throw up. Reading the case file had done nothing more than make her eager to put this bastard into a cage for as long as possible. She waited while he read the file Carter had helped her put together with her undercover alias. Harris tapped his pen, which made her want to break it and stab him with it.

"You've been a very busy girl. Three counts possession, two counts robbery, two counts assault," he listed, "So what's your sob story?"

She lightly said, "I told Uncle Willy not to touch me there. All downhill from there," she leaned forward, "look, you couldn't figure me out with a idiot's guide and Rosetta Stone, so can I just go back to my room?" she leaned back. "There's lesbians to fend off and hazing rituals to be endured. I'm on a schedule."

"Do you find yourself missing your daughter?" the principal slash warden asked.

Veronica had tears in her eyes. Her lips tightened as she swallowed, "What? Do you get extra vacation days if you make me cry?"

"I'm sure your mother is taking good care of her. She's stopped huffing paint by now, right?" Harris pulled out a tape player from his desk drawer, hit play. The song, "Dance on my shoes," was one of the things the reports had mentioned, and Veronica knew the moment was coming, "I'll bet that baby girl looks just like her mama. A little blonde slice of heaven." He held her file, "this doesn't tell me anything." He frisbeed the file onto his blotter. He walked around Veronica, "tell me who you are." He put his hands on her shoulders, and Veronica had to resist the urge to flip him over her shoulder, the way the Academy instructors had shown her. "Really." He released her, and walked to the window.

She continued chewing her gum, and he loosened his tie, "You seem like a bright girl." He finally said, "spit the gum out," and she leaned over to the trash, dropping the ball of gum from her mouth into the trash. She rolled her eyes when he said, "Maybe you can show me what you have to contribute to society." She could remember Carter telling her, as he helped her attach the wire to her bra (as if that wasn't embarrassing enough), to get Harris to say the exact words on tape. The exact exchange- sex (act) for early release- and they would have him. Harris closed the venetian blinds, and Veronica prayed that nothing went wrong with the recording.

Harris sat on the desk, unzipping his pants, and Veronica acted like she didn't know where this was going, "What do you call that?" She could see him boxers, and she had to resist the urge to kick him where it would hurt. She had to get him to say the words.

"A membership- to the guess who is going home to her little girl two months early club."

"Just so we're clear. I get two months shaved off my sentence if I perform a sex act on you?"

"My but we are formal."

"We are. We like direction. Look, I am willing to take a ride, if it gets me to where I want to be."

"You'll be home by Christmas."

Carter had told her to get out of there as soon as she had the words. She had the words. Her cue to leave.

She started to stand up, "well, I have a lot to think about."

"Thinking time is over, little bitch," Harris said, shoving her back into the chair, "time to pay up."

"My virginity is a gift. A precious gift," Veronica said, trying to quip her way out.

"Well, consider this my birthday," He started to shove his pants down his legs.

"Stop. Pull your pants back up. I'm FBI and you're under arrest." Veronica stood up completely.

"Seriously?!" Harris asked.

"Do want to see my badge?"

Suddenly, Harris bolted out of the office and out of the building. Veronica was momentarily surprised, but chased after him. He was holding up his pants, trying to refasten his pants and his belt buckle. Veronica knew she was out of shape when she could keep up with a man older than her father and he was slightly plump to boot. Time to hit the gym, Veronica.

Luckily, Carter chose that moment to open the sedan car door, and the creepy principal hit the door, and fell. Carter leapt out of the car, cuffed him, while Veronica stood panting.

"I had him you know."

"Yeah, and what were you going to do with him?"

"Oh, spike him like a football and do the wave. Or a celebratory robot. Moonwalk perhaps. Something for the kids." She had her hands on her hips and

Carter said, "and I thought you didn't have it in you."

She scoffed, but remembered the way he had smirked at her in the conference room. Which was right before Seth had walked right into the room and before she had that awkward conservation with Seth.

_ Break line _

That night, she and Carter sat in the sedan watching a building. In the dark. She wasn't used to doing stakeouts with another person besides her father or Back-up, the overprotective pitbull. When she helped her dad in the P.I. biz, it had been just her and her camera. With the powerful zoom lens. She sat quietly for as long as she could before the silence unnerved her and made her ask, "So is this how it is? Horny principals by day, mad bombers by night?"

Carter made a show of glancing at his watch, "Well, I'll give you credit. You're better than most rookies on a stakeout. Forty-five minutes of silence. Gotta be a record."

"I could tell you're thrilled to be working with me," Veronica said.

"How could you tell?"

"Oh, we learned all about that at Quantico. Vocal inflection, body language." She looked at him before stressing, "Plus I heard you ask Hendricks why you were getting stuck with Barbie." His dimples flashed as he heard his words tossed back at him. "You've read my file, so don't tell anyone my middle name."

There was a pause before he said "Your middle name?" just as she said, "You made it through the academy?" He lifted his finger in acknowledgement for her teasing him and earning a point. He smiled, and she could see his dimples again. Great. She was a sucker for dimples.

"Think our guy is gonna show?"

"I don't think our guy is our guy. I think he's dead, and the real Book Rate Bomber murdered him."

"Is this one of those gut feelings I've heard so much about?" Veronica agreed with Carter actually. She'd read the file, and had applied some of the criminal profiling she'd learned from her dad, Professor Landry, and Quantico to make an educated guess that the FBI was looking at the wrong guy. But she wanted to hear Carter's reasoning.

"Oh, he's got the mindset of a radical. But he doesn't have the patience. No, the bomb maker is meticulous, obsessive. Anal."

Her eyes widened before she smiled and teased him, "so you're a better profiler than all the FBI's top guys who pegged the professor?"

"Yes," Carter said, seriously.

Veronica laughed quietly. He turned to look at her, "You laugh because you don't whether or not I'm serious. And if I am right, that might mean I am smarter than you. And that would be just awful, because you've always been the smartest person in the room."

Veronica thought, Well he's got me pegged. Mostly.

He continued, "See, I'm that good."

_ Break line _

The next day Hendricks mentioned to Veronica that he had missed seeing her at the bar the night before. Great a missed opportunity to subtly ass kiss the boss. Not that she wanted to be seen as a brown-noser, but she didn't want to give the other rookies a lead over her. Not even a little bit. She wanted to stay on the Book Rate Bomber case, and have the chance to work more with Carter. Stakeouts with him were fun, she discovered. It was interesting, and her stomach got a little thrill whenever he flashed those dimples at her or smirked, his gray-blue eyes half laughing, half serious. Shit, I'm waxing poetic over a senior agent. Next thing you know, I'll be writing him love poems.

_-Break line- _

Callie and Veronica questioned a former student of the still missing professor. Veronica asked, "You took three classes from him?"

"Oh, yeah. The guy is batshit crazy. A train wreck. Have you read his manifesto?"

"You have copy?" Veronica asked.

The guy rubbed his hands together, "sure I have a copy. I'll go dig it up."

He disappeared into the next room.

"So drinks with Hendricks?"

"Yeah, he seems alright." Callie tilted her head, "Outside of the office."

"Mind letting me know next time?"

"That my job?" Callie returned.

"It's just that Hendricks told me he told that hotshot rook to let everyone know."

"He calls everyone hotshot. Seth is the one that told me."

Veronica rolled her eyes in realization. Of course. Seth has become somewhat of a jackass. Logan 2.0 basically, post- Lilly, not Logan 1.0 the friend or 3.0 the boyfriend and sometimes awkward, but a washed out version of the psychotic jackass. I guess every FBI field office needs one.

Veronica let her eyes wander the room- she saw the carefully put together boats in a bottle, the ocd organized plastic containers of books. Meticulous, obsessive, Carter had said. Oh God, no one looked at Dr. Sherbock's students. She opened the closet door and bolted inside. "Veronica? Did you see something?" Callie roved her eyes over the bookshelves and pantry, but didn't see or sense anything. Veronica saw more boats in a bottle, and she picked up a book and opened it. The book was hollowed out- like the bomber's modus operandi. She heard a grunted scream outside the closet, and set the book down. She pulled her gun, and cautiously stepped outside of the closet. The scrawny guy had a butcher knife up to Callie's neck. "Drop it, or I'll slice her ear to ear."

Veronica gripped the gun tighter. Thanks to her dad training her in using a gun since he was in the sheriff's office and to Quantico, she was a terrific shot. But she didn't want to risk Callie getting killed. She said, "You kill her, you're dead before she even hits the floor."

His hand tightened, and his eyes held a fanatical light, "At least one of you will be dead."

Callie met Veronica's eyes. They'd been in training together since the beginning of Academy- and they'd been roommates for a short time. They knew every facial expression of each other, even if they weren't exactly friends, and they'd had already come up with several preplanned signals for situations like this. There was no fear in Callie's eyes, just trust that Veronica would do her part.

Callie let her body go limp and heavy, and her weight unbalanced her captor's hold. His hold on her slipped and she let her body fall to the ground. Before he could do anything else, Veronica fired a shot straight into his heart. She gasped, and watched his body fall to the ground, and the blood bloomed upon his chest. She breathed in, loosened her grip on her weapon slightly, looked over at Callie and simply asked, "A pretend faint? Really?"

Callie looked up from her horizontal position on the floor and grimaced, "It works every time, right?" Veronica walked over to prone bomber and checked for a pulse. He was dead. Veronica had nothing if not an accurate eye and gun. Veronica nodded, told Callie, call it in, and let Carter know he was right."

Callie nodded, using her cell phone to dial Carter who was parked in front of the building he and Veronica had previously staked out.

-Break line _

Hours later:

Veronica sat on the bed in the dismal hotel room she was still renting. She had yet to find a place near the field office that was both cheap and livable. She wasn't picky, she was just discerning. Anyway, the door had more locks on it than the room she had stayed in while visiting New York, and she had carefully checked each one before curling up on the bed. She wasn't sad, or upset exactly. She couldn't pinpoint how she felt, but she had tears in her eyes, a wet tissue in her hand, and felt like bawling like a five year old who skinned his knees on the playground.

There was knock on the door. She debated answering it- she was in a ratty bathrobe, and her mascara was in streaks on her face. She peaked out of the peep hole and saw a distorted version of Carter. She opened the door, and he pretended not to see her tearstained face. "I thought you might be hungry, so I brought some take out." He held up a bag with the name of a nearby Chinese food place. She let him in, and she sat back down on the sagging bed. He sat next to her, and opened the food containers, passing one to her, taking another for himself.

"How did you know?"

"I saw a receipt for the place fall out of your pocket one day, thought it might be-"

"No. How did you know I needed someone? When I didn't even know until I saw your face."

"I remembered my first fatal take down. It's harsh."

"Thanks," she said, and she finally broke down, sobbing hard. Carter set the food down and took her in his arms. He placed his hand on her hair, stroking her gently, just letting her release the emotions. He scooted backward onto the bed, leaning his head on the pillows, and letting her head rest on his chest while she sobbed out her fears, and the tension the shooting had given her. Eventually, she calmed down, and he could feel her breathing slow down. She fell asleep in his arms, and he looked down at her pretty and petite features, running his fingers over her eyebrows, and across her cheeks.

In the short time he'd come to know her- longer than she thought, actually, he'd come to respect Veronica. He'd even fallen a little bit in love with her, and that scared him, because the time he'd known her was short. He had caught a glimpse of her in the academy in the last year, and he had thought she was very pretty. And he knew she was brilliant, because she impressed so many of the senior agents at Quantico, and already in the L.A. field office. He'd read her file- even the background stuff, like her friend getting killed four years ago, and her boyfriend Duncan kidnapping the Manning child. He knew she helped the guy- the agents had discovered from Don Lamb that the Mannings had been abusing their youngest, but not in a way that the courts could take action, because the child was in danger.(The justice system is seriously screwed, and CPS is overloaded with cases). It was all in the file, and he had pushed for her transfer to L.A. when she had requested it for her placement in a field office.

Soon, he fell asleep holding her, and he could smell the delicate scent of her skin in his dreams. He felt her legs entangled with his, and his head tilted down, so he could look at her if he woke up before she did.

Author's Note: Whew! That was way longer than I planned for the first chapter. Oh well. Remember, review, follow, and favorite. Thanks for reading.