This is two weeks late, but I swore to myself that I would get this out before 2014…which I also failed at, but only by two hours and 38 minutes. Anyway, enjoy.

Logan had always known that the most awful things could hide behind exteriors plain or beautiful. He was still disappointed that the school didn't look different, that there was no flashing lightning and sinister laughter, that it looked just like its same worn self. Veronica parked haphazardly and they slammed across the parking lot.

"Element of surprise," Veronica reminded him as he used his key to let them into the building, and he led her silently through the halls to Mrs. Krazny's classroom. From around the corner, he could see that the door was closed, but there was a muted sprinkle of light glancing through the window into the hallway. He and Veronica had a near-silent argument about what to do, but it was solved as Mrs. Krazny came out into the hall. She was moving slowly, hindered by the small body against her side, but she was stronger than Logan had realized she would be. He shivered a little hearing the way Sam's shoes were being shuffled along the floor. Caldwell had understated when he had said that the medication made the kids drowsy. Sam was totally knocked out.

"I've got backup waiting outside," Veronica hissed, as close to his ear as their height differential would allow.

Still trying to track Mrs. Krazny's progress down the darkened hall, Logan did not look over as he responded, "Having the A-Team storm in is a mistake."

"It's just you and me for now," she managed before the shuffling stopped and Mrs. Krazny cautiously whispered a hello through the darkness. Logan froze for half a second, fear tingling automatically between his ribs and in his stomach. "I've got this," he said, the fear speaking in his voice, and he stepped into the hallway.

"Hi, Mrs. Krazny," he said, wondering if his voice seemed as even to her as he was trying to keep it. "I needed to grab a couple of things. What are you doing here?"

"Hello, dear." And just in those two words, Logan could tell that she was gone. There was a gun, a small, dainty one that looked almost pretty in her hand, tucked somewhere between her body and the back of Sam's neck, tilting upward. Logan didn't know much about physics or the precise arrangement of the inside of a child's body, but he felt safe in assuming that being shot there would be unfortunate for the spine or brain or both. "You have arrived at the most inconvenient time."

"I've been told that's a skill of mine." He was walking toward her slowly, hands in his pockets. "But are you sure that this is one of those times? That's Sam Webber isn't it? And he looks like he is asleep. Can I give you a hand, maybe drive him home?"

"You're such a sweet boy," she said. He drew in a breath half a sigh of relief, but then she laughed. "But Salinger told me, 'That's the nice thing about carousels. They always play the same song.'" She slid herself against the wall, eased herself and Sam to the floor. He groaned very slightly, but did not wake. Logan stepped forward, instinct only, but she had already readjusted the gun. She shook her head. "Please don't. I do it painlessly and if you interrupt any more, things will become so much messier."

"I've been shot at," Logan said, his voice anesthetized. He felt almost high, separated from himself and frantic because he couldn't escape his own numbness. "There's nothing painless about it. And that's leaving out the part where you want to kill him."

Her hand tightened around the gun. "More painless than growing up here."

"Elaine," Logan said, and regretted it as soon as he did. They had once had a hostage situation training session, and he thought that calling her by her first name was the right thing to do, but maybe that was wrong. There were teachers who he called by their first names, but Mrs. Krazny had never been one of them, so maybe instead of personalizing the situation for her it would break her out of everything. He couldn't have this be another instance of "My name is Cassidy," where everything hinged on a wrong word said. He clenched his fist and wished he and Veronica had worked out a signal. "There are so many kids who can grow up here and get out. You must have seen them, the kids who are just amazing."

She smiled pity and condescension at him. "Sweet boy. You just don't yet know that they're not enough. Hundreds and hundreds I've taught over the years, forcing their heads full of Homer and Poe, and it's just meant sending them out where words are not the weapons they can use. This is so much better, so much easier for them. This is how I can truly help them. I'm only sorry that I realized it now after I missed the chance to help so many others."

Explaining this to someone with intact logical faculties was difficult. He had seen dozens of teachers start their careers at Jackson only to leave, discouraged, by the seeming fruitlessness of what they were trying to accomplish, at the lack of resources and governmental support, the apathy of the families and the relentless focus on test scores and getting the kids graduated and out. The effect that they were having was just something that you had to take on faith. He had struggled to find that faith, but even when he lost it, he tried to push through in practice if not in mind until he found it again.

"Look, I know that it might be hard, teaching so many kids when odds are their lives aren't going to become better for it in the long run. But context is everything." He'd never liked his voice, all awkward angles and the fear of breaking half the time, but he stretched it to the limit, trying to remind her of what she had dedicated her life to. "You must have seen the light in a kid's eyes when they read Anne Frank and realize that she had so much hope for so little reason, or when they describe Atticus Finch like talking about him enough will make him real. You might not remember it now, but you must have known it once."

She readjusted Sam, and Logan hoped that his face did not betray his panic. He had no idea what the drugs were doing to the kid while they talked. "I was fooled as you were for so long, sure that I could do enough with so little. But I went to the church and the good Lord told me that you must train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it. The world trains them so differently than we do that our lessons our worthless. I choose only the ones whose families cannot be bothered to love them before they are dead. I save the pure souls from a life that does not care for them. I save the world from more people who might grow into monsters. I remind people of the help that we need." She smiled at him, and it was so pure, so without even the hidden, layered malice of the evil people who Logan had met in his life, that he had to fight taking a step back.

He realized, perhaps too late, that there was very little that he could say to a literally demented elderly teacher, but he tried. Ten years of discussing literature and the occasional AA meeting which overlapped with church services had given him a few back-pocket bible passages. "He also says that "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me," and I hate to contradict a good Christian woman, but that death grip doesn't seem particularly welcoming to me."

It was the wrong thing to say, and Logan didn't know how he could turn from silver-tongued expert to bumbling and thoughtless in a sentence. Mrs. Krazny closed down. "My plan has only helped. I surely don't need to give you a further lesson in the needs of the many." She spoke in the derisive tone of a teacher toward the least favorite student.

There was a small sound behind him but he couldn't turn away from Mrs. Krazny. He kept his eyes trained on her pistol and couldn't confirm that it was Veronica coming toward him until she was at his elbow. His breath lumped in his throat when he saw her standing with her feet braced against the impact of her own gun. He suddenly knew how she had felt when he had come into the River Styx, brandishing a weapon of his own. Part of him wanted to rejoice, to step back and believe that his part was over, that he had been saved. He had no doubt that she would be able to shoot far better than his teenage self, but that didn't stop the panic that threatened to overwhelm him.

"This is Veronica," he told Mrs. Krazny. He pressed his fingers into his palms in an effort to channel his desperation that way so his voice wouldn't betray him. "I guess I don't have to do my usual, 'Be careful, she's a pistol' introduction."

"No," Veronica said, concentrating ahead of herself, on the figures against the wall rather than on him. "Do the pistol one. The other ones are much less complementary. And less applicable. Mrs. Krazny, please put the weapon down and release the child."

"Young lady." Mrs. Krazny somehow managed to say this while sounding chastising and disapproving. "Young lady, while I have no doubt that you have the experience and eyesight to outshoot me, in this case, I believe I have a distinct advantage."

Veronica's face was so steady that Logan had to listen hard for the catch in her voice. "About six years ago, this weird little piece of legislation passed. Most people didn't pay attention to it because all it said was that extreme force measures without repercussions were permitted in hostage situations with serial killers, and really, I think we're filling up our quota of those for the year right now." She shifted her stance a whisper, and Mrs. Krazny's eyes followed her, mouth ticking downward just slightly at the corners. Logan thought that his father would have been envious at the way Veronica could work a room. "Ma'am, due to the extent of your crimes, I have been authorized to take emergency measures in this situation."

Logan almost thought it was over. Mrs. Krazny seemed to shift the boy in her arms as if she were preparing to release him. But he had forgotten how he could upset his father, then tiptoe around for days until he believed it over, only to be confronted by a resurgence of anger that had been in hibernation. He should have known better, really, because Veronica did not move, did not relax, and Mrs. Krazny readjusted her grip on her gun next, pressing it further into Sam's neck.

"One day I'll teach you to bluff, dear," she said blandly. "You need follow through and the assurance that your opponent does not want to lose. I hadn't planned to live, but if you had meant to use that gun regardless of the child, you would have done it while I was distracted. I'm afraid that I hold all the cards, if you'll forgive the lengthy metaphor. Poor student habits sink in after so long."

"Mrs. Krazny," Veronica smiled tightly. "I'm sure that you have been underestimated in the past because of your appearance. You're making that same mistake now. Put down the boy, or I will shoot you."

"Veronica is the best poker player I know," Logan said. "If she's bluffing, it's only because she has blackmail material to take all your winnings even if she loses." He stepped forward. "But I don't want her to lose." He spoke in a low tone, an animal-soothing tone, and even Veronica seemed to have been lulled, because he managed to place himself in front of the gun. "I know that you care about the children. If you didn't, you wouldn't give them drugs to make sure that they don't feel anything. You know that this can't be right for them."

"Who decides what is right for them?" And if Logan thought that she would cry saying it, he was wrong, because it came out barbed and vicious. "Their parents, who ignore them for drugs or sex or work? Their social workers, who forget about them? Their congressmen, who only care about votes and money to line their pockets? No. I hold this pure one in my arms and I decide to let him rest." Mania had entered her eyes, and Logan was glad for it.

"Maybe," he said, moving still closer. "But not this one. His name is Samuel Nathan Webber. You taught his big brother Danny two years ago. There are ten years between them because their mom, Monica, adopted Danny when he was little. And she loves him so much it doesn't make a difference, but she wanted to have a child of her own too. She tried for years, and finally she had another little boy. She named him Samuel after the one in the bible. The one whose mother prayed for him so hard that God gave her a son. That's who you have in your arms." He had tucked one of his arms between her body and Sam's. It was indelicate, but he was just going to have to slide the boy out. "There was a mistake made today, leaving him alone, but this is not someone who has no one to care for him." Sam was lying on the floor beside them. There was a faint shuffling, and Logan guessed it was Veronica putting the cavalry on alert. Mrs. Krazny was panting. She still gripped the gun tightly, and Logan gently redirected it so that it was pointing toward his own chest.

It was the first time that he had placed himself in danger like this with so much to lose. He was no longer a depressed, semi-suicidal fuckup. He had things he loved, things that he wanted to keep and return to. This wouldn't be a release, there would not be relief that he could be finished. It would be a theft, and he tried not to tremble at the thought.

"I have no family. I would be on the front page for weeks. If what we do it worthless, than I won't matter anyway. Will you do it, Elaine? Is it my turn?"

He had his hand clasped around hers on the gun, gently supporting her grip. She sobbed a little, sagged away from the wall. Her hand loosened on the weapon and he caught it neatly, placing it carefully on the floor behind him. He heard footsteps and someone picked it up.

"I think it's my turn, actually," Veronica said quietly. Logan helped Mrs. Krazny to her feet. Two uniformed officers moved from where they were flanking Veronica so that they could support Mrs. Krazny. There was a moment where the only sound was their boots departing into the darkness, the only thing he could feel was the heat of Veronica's arm beside his.

"And I thought getting out of Neptune would get me away from all of this soap opera shit," he managed, before the hallway filled with police and paramedics and crime scene techs and a fuming Dr. Curtis, and the scene dissolved into light and noise and chaos.

Much later, Veronica found him tucked against a wall in the hallway behind the gym. He was bent over, palms on his knees as he panted for breath. He had given his statement, stayed around long enough for Sam to be pronounced fit by the EMTs and reunited with his family, but eventually the panic and adrenaline had caught up with him.

He had called Jen's office and asked for an emergency session. He was thinking about his bed. He tried to remember if Dr. Curtis had said anything about cancelling school the next day. He couldn't catch his breath. His shoulders shuddered and he realized that he was crying, not emotionally, just a release of tears.

Eventually he looked up, wiped his face and tried to breathe deeply. Veronica was leaning on the wall across from him, face passive and silent. She handed him a bottle of water.

"You were great, back there," she says, voice hushed to match the quiet around them. He sipped slowly from a bottle. "That stuff about Sam…that was just what she needed to hear. I'm glad you knew it."

"Made it up."

"Really?"

He snorted. "Yeah. Not like Danny spills his family secrets during our discussions of The Sun Also Rises."

"Strange. I start reading Hemingway, and I just can't help talking about the times I convinced my dad to do Disney karaoke."

He smiled, breathed out a laugh. "Yeah, well my family was more about making up stories than having them."

She crossed her arms and then uncrossed them just as quickly. "I'm sorry I yelled at you earlier. You've done really well with this whole investigation."

Logan turned the bottle in his fingers. "I'm not sure what surprises me more," he said, without heat, "The apology, or that it was just a few hours ago that you were yelling at me because I was a jackass."

"Please. It's the apology. Yelling comes around every day, but a Veronica Mars apology is something you get framed."

He was in a button down, but his fingers groped at the sleeves anyway, trying to pull them over his hands. "I'm sorry that I didn't realize it was her sooner. I've known her for years. I had all the pieces but I didn't put them together, and maybe if I had…"

"More like you didn't know that you were looking at a puzzle." He looked at her only dartingly, but he saw compassion in the softness of her features, and the warmth that filled him made him look away. "Logan, I saw you almost every day for four years. And even when you missed school or wouldn't take off your shirt to swim, I didn't notice. In the limo on Homecoming night, when Duncan sprayed you with champagne and you yelled at him because it was your dad's tux, you weren't just angry, you were afraid. And I didn't get it until Trina basically yelled it in my face, and I didn't fully believe it until your dad beat a man half to death in front of me." She moved so that she could touch him, tugging his fingers from where they had managed to sneak through his cuffs so that they could wrap shyly around hers. "When people want to hide things, they can do that for a long time. It's my job to find them out eventually, and I'm pretty damn good at my job."

Her name echoed down another hall, close, and they both looked up at the sound. "I guess I'm a little too good," she said wryly. "A week in town and they can't function without me." She kissed his cheek quickly and started stepping away backwards. "You can go home, get some sleep. I have to do some stuff for a while, but I'll be back, okay?" She was shadowed in the hallway where the darkness was inky as pain, lit only by the emergency exit sign. "Take care of yourself. I don't want to come back to find that you've let yourself go to pot."

"It's all about ecstasy now, anyway," Logan replied, voice airy. "Think you can help me bring some of that into my life?"

"I'll try." He couldn't see her any more, but then, "But go to sleep," ricocheted along the tile back at him. And when he finally did go to sleep that night, that was the sound he fixed in his mind.

The last few weeks of school were some of the worst of Logan's life. When he told Jack this, Jack raised an eyebrow and said, "Really?" because he had heard the Neptune horror stories, but didn't argue. If Logan was rating it high, it was high

Logan hadn't been expecting a parade or autograph requests, but the level of animosity shocked him. The first day back, two days after, was quiet. The parking lot was still shimmying with reporters, but inside, the students were hushed and subdued. Logan took over one of Mrs. Krazny's classes that afternoon, and had the urge to tap dance on the desk to get a reaction from them.

Danny Webber came up to him as he was packing up and thanked him again, handing over a cake with "Thank You!" emblazoned in large, roughly iced letters. "Sam and my mom made it."

"And Sam's doing okay?"

"Yeah," Danny said instinctively, but then added, lower and almost involuntarily, "He won't sleep with the lights off anymore."

"It'll take time, but it can be okay again," Logan had offered, and Danny had nodded, looking away, and left the room.

But in the days following, he began to get a taste of what he must have made junior year like for Veronica. An intrepid reporter did a feature on him, tracing him back to Neptune, rehashing his entire past. He had been invisible at the school until now because his family scandal was a thousand years old in celebrity gossip time. To his students, recalling who Aaron Echolls was would be like picking Errol Flynn out of a lineup: they had heard the name, but recognizing him would take a real pop culture expert. But after the article, everything- his prior arrests, his money- was displayed. He thought that it could all have been overlooked, might even have enhanced his reputation, except that there was also a large part of the story devoted to his cooperation with the police.

Things shifted after that. Students shoved against him in the hallways. Questions were answered grudgingly, around glares and gritted teeth. When he walked by, people would pretend to cough into their palms but tuck "narc!" into the exhalation as well. The other teachers patted his back, congratulated him briefly and sympathized over his dramatic status change, but there was still an off-putting aloofness. It was as if he had broken some kind of code that he hadn't known was there. He didn't regret what he had done, but he wished that he had given more than no thought at all to the reversal of everything that he had worked for since leaving Neptune. He had been Veronica's perfect resource, but now that was all he was seen as.

He had twice-weekly sessions with Jen now, something that he hadn't done for a long time. There was a lot to deal with: guilt, and anger, and the fact that Veronica hadn't contacted him and it had been three weeks. Picking his nails in the quiet of her office, he examined the carpet and finally asked if leaving might be a good idea.

Brusquely, she asked, "What's your plan, Logan?" He liked that Jen refused to coddle him, but sometimes he wished that she would.

"It wouldn't be giving up," he blurted, and as soon as he said it, he knew that it was one of those unfortunately telling mistakes. Jen stared pointedly and overlooked it, and he retracted every bad thought he had ever had about her. "I thought that maybe I would just take a break. It's been a while since I went anywhere that has normal representation in Congress." After a decade of talking to her, Logan knew most of Jen's cues. The one where she stayed quiet while raising an eyebrow or pursing her lips meant that it was still his turn to talk. "I just feel like I've wrapped everything up in this one thing, and I want to make sure that I'm not living a one track life. I did that before and it's nothing I want to go back to."

"Are you sure that you aren't running away from confrontation with the past that you left behind?"

"I know myself. I have to live with myself every day. I just want to make sure that there's more to me." He reached blindly over to the end table, snatching a pen to move between his fingers. "Do you…Do you think I'm ready for that?" He glanced up for a second and found her warm gaze waiting.

"I think you know what I'm going to ask you."

"I hate when you go full therapist on me," he groaned, because he did know what she was going to ask: Do you think you're ready?

He was still contemplating the question as he oversaw his last final a few days later. A couple of kids had thawed or become brave enough to mumble toward him as they walked out, but far too many tossed their exams carelessly on his desk before bolting. He sighed as he collected the papers, tucking them into his bag and pausing only for a moment as the envelope containing his letter of resignation caught his eye. He closed up the bag and sat back at his desk, head in his hands.

He hated calling it that, but if he left, that's what he would show: that he was resigned, that he had given up. But the place where he had once invested himself had rejected him and he didn't know how else to deal with that.

All he really wanted to do was go home, order takeout and knock off a bottle of anything, maybe without the takeout part. What he would probably do was go home, order takeout and listen to "Eleanor Rigby" on repeat, but even the thought made feel sorry for himself. He took a couple of deep breaths. He was going to count to ten, then lift his head and call Jack for a rescue.

When he sat up twenty seconds later, Veronica was perched on the corner of the desk.

"One of these days I'm going to get motion detectors installed and that will be the end of your little teleportation act," he grumbled sourly.

"Yes. I quake in fear thinking of the day that you technologically cripple my skills. Curse you." She had the light, dramatic flair that he remembered, and it made him smile. She smiled back, a slow, growing thing, and seemed encouraged. "I'm sorry I took so long. I had some stuff to wrap up, but I thought it would be done sooner."

"It's okay." He rested his chin on his hand and looked up at her. He was pretty sure that he had crossed the line into looking foolishly besotted, something he hadn't had to worry about in a long time. "Hey, I like this apology thing. Soon I'll have enough saved up to get a free one."

"Oooh, I'm sorry. That promotion has expired. I do have this, though." She held out an envelope, and for one slack-jawed second he thought that she had somehow gotten his letter. Something must have shown on his face, because she didn't wait for him to open the packet to explain. "Commendation from the city for your work."

Shoving back from the desk, he went to remove the essays from his bulletin boards. Usually the kids asked for them back to save or hang at home, but this year only a few had. The rest seemed so caught up in his reputation as a police conspirator that they didn't take pleasure from his praise anymore. "Yeah. My work. Commendable." He pretended to throw a handful of confetti over his head before he yanked the first paper from the wall.

"I'm guessing it hasn't been sunshine city for you here?

"Only if you're talking about the sunshine that beats directly on one's head as they stand in hell."

She lifted herself fully onto his desk, resting her weight back on her palms as her legs dangled. "I'm sorry. I made it clear to the reporters that you were off limits, but I guess it was too late."

He had noticed that there had been no follow-up after that initial article, had even commented on it to Lisa when she had called to check up on him a few nights ago, although it had done little to comfort him when everything was already ruined. "It's okay. I appreciate it anyway." He focused on firmly pressing the thumbtacks into the cork in a neat row. He didn't want to blame Veronica because his mind knew that she didn't deserve it, but that didn't make the anger go away. He tightly added, "I'm sure you had a lot of stuff to do," hoping that his voice didn't betray him.

Either it was as smooth as he hoped, or she had decided against bristling from his resentment. Although her legs stopped swinging, her body did not curve in or shut down. "Yeah. I was actually…I was moving back. Not to Neptune, but I got my stuff from my place in New York and moved out to LA."

"Does that mean that all the nation's crime will be making the exodus with you? I'll have to alert my insurance company."

"I actually quit my job," she said, fast and a little breathless. He realized, very suddenly, that his opinion actually mattered to her. Looking proud and a little nervous, she added, "I've been working on my JD over the past few years and I got a job. Prosecuting with the California Department of Justice Victim's Services Unit, actually."

Eyes bright, he went and hugged her. "That's incredible, Veronica. I'm really…I'm happy for you." He stepped back, looking away to the side. "But isn't giving up against the Veronica Mars Code of Obstinacy, or something?" He tried to soften the words, but his own problem came out with a bite, and he wasn't sure she would want to answer.

The gentle way that her voice came out made him even angrier at himself. She took his hand. "Logan, it's not giving up to get yourself to someplace that's better for you. I'll still be helping people, but I might actually get to have a life now. Get a plant that I'll be around to water. Hang out with my dad. Maybe see if Wallace could still pick me out of a lineup." It was her turn to look away as she slowly added, "I heard that it wasn't going really well here so I went…This sounds like stalker level infinity, but…" She reached into her bag and pulled out a stack of forms.

"Crenshaw High, Los Angeles," he read at the top.

"I stopped there before I flew back. They're always looking for good teachers, and I told them I had one who might be interested." She looked up at him, shy and just slightly manipulative. "So are you, or am I going to have to go convince whoever teaches next door?"

"Well, as excellent as the sun will be for Mr. Hart's eczema, I think I could be convinced." They were smiling at each other, helplessly foolish, and it was like the kiss of her lips when she stole a French fry from his fingertips, like the dizzy closeness of holding her in cars and corridors, like the snort she gave whenever he said something that she found funny despite herself. He reached out a hand to tug her off the desk, and it was his body readjusting to being in love with Veronica Mars.

They were in the hallway when he realized that he had forgotten his bag. "I know it seems like they'll take any breathing human in the classroom these days, but they do actually like us to give the students grades on things," he called back to her. "Sticklers."

"Give 'em all As," she said, laughing. "Your last big bad boy moment."

He was grinning as he went to take his case, and it only faded slightly as he looked around the room. His best thing, remolded into something that didn't love him anymore, and he could only hope that, like Veronica, he would be able to find it again someplace else and make it work.

He drew the blinds, conscientious, and paused in front of the board on his way toward the door.

Have a good summer, it still read in his large slanted letters, and he smiled at the words. "You know, I just might," he said aloud, grateful and fearful and hopeful, and turned off the light.

A/N: Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm damn proud of myself! That was my first real, finished chapter fic and I think it did not go terribly. I want to thank the people who reviewed, recced, favorited and followed this story, both on fanfiction and AO3. Special shout outs to a2zmom, who's been reading and reviewing my fic for a long time, and to my faithful reviewers cali-chan, scandalpants, qpidntrainin, Shel12, FatPatricia515, Josielynn, kstrac75, HoneyBee1, erdi99, layoung13, Jeanie205, LoVefan1123, and all the others. I'm not joking when I say that I pushed through for you.

Before you ask, there will probably not be a sequel to this story. Repeat: no sequel. However, I do have a new oneshot that's already four pages long and should be posted pretty soon.

I had a great time with this. Thanks for rocking it with me.