Veronica Mars is a marshmallow (ronmars) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-03-23 11:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, emma swan, veronica mars |
Who: Emma and Veronica
What: Coffee and dream talk
When: Sometime in January after this
Where: A coffee shop
Rating/Warning: Low!
Status: Complete
Talking to people in Orange County wasn’t hard. Making friends was a little more complicated, but she could at least communicate well enough. The network seemed to make it easier -people with dream issues, people who were looking for help in places, it was a fairly simple task. She coped okay with that side of things.
It was just figuring out who’d understand if you really needed to talk about something in your dreams, who would look at you like you needed to lay off the dairy before bed and who would commiserate from whatever they were dreaming. The net just made that one easier, since they seemed to have that in common.
Meeting up with Veronica for a coffee, some time to chat, Emma was fairly content with getting to meet some more people -network or not.
It wasn’t hard to find the place Ron had mentioned, she was good at finding coffee places after all, they were more important than banks. She was a little bit early, figuring it would be better to be early and get them a table to sit at, pulling her hair up into a high ponytail while she settled in to wait for Ron to arrive.
Coffee was a staple in Veronica’s diet. With having a baby - or well toddler? Liam was almost 2 now. That was basically toddler aged right? Either way he still took a lot of her energy. And then there was her job which required numerous all night stake-outs. Yeah, Veronica basically lived off coffee. But hey, at least she didn’t have to deal with the dreams anymore.
Although it had been awhile since Veronica had any new dreams she still remembered what it was like to dream. Not only that but to adjust to all the craziness that happened in Orange County on top of them. It wasn’t like she was the most friendly person around, but she didn’t mind meeting someone who was still fairly new to the area for coffee. Hopefully help Emma adjust to this place, and hey coffee was involved.
Veronica arrived a few minutes late. Liam had been in the middle of a tantrum and she felt bad handing him off to her dad like that. The least she could do was calm him down. When she arrived she spotted Emma right away and made her way over to the table. “Sorry I’m late,” Veronica apologized. “Baby drama.”
“Oh, don’t worry about,” waving off the apology before Veronica even managed to sit down, Emma was completely fine with a little tardiness -especially when it came to infants. Not that she had one -to raise- but she’d worked with plenty of young moms through the years to understand the schedules were had to keep with young children. “It’s not like I was waiting long.” And there was no need to tell Ron that she got there early, it wasn’t like Ron asked her meet 15 minutes early, Emma just wasn’t that familiar with the place and needed the leeway.
“I haven’t ordered, but I think they were ready when we were.” Emma was very easy to please when it came to coffee, she liked it fairly plain; as hot as possible with a splash of creamer and one sugar. Nothing extravagant for her.
And because she wasn’t raised in a barn, “How old is your little one?”
“Almost two years,” Veronica replied. She knew most new moms were precise to the month, but once the kid was over a year old she didn’t see the point.
She ordered herself a mocha latte and waited for Emma to place her order before continuing. “So how are you holding up? Dreams still just showing you a fucked up childhood?”
It wasn’t like Emma could falter Veronica for running a little later if she had what everyone seemed to call ‘the terrible twos’ gearing up at home. And it wasn’t like they were on a time scale anyway.
Ordering her own coffee, just a nice plain white coffee, Emma have a casual shrug at the dream question. “The usual, met a boy, fell in love, got framed for stealing watches, went to prison for two years.”
She supposed it hurt more. Knowing that in this world the same man who fathered her child did the same in the dreams, and then left her in jail for his crimes.
Bitter pill to swallow that was.
“Sounds like a real winner,” Veronica commented with a smirk. Emma hadn’t outright said the boy was the one that framed her. But she pretty much implied it and Veronica was always good at reading between the lines. Came in handy with her job too.
She supposed it wasn’t really the best, and no, Emma couldn’t say it was the best way to break up (did they break up? Would Neal show up in dreams later and Emma, being so desperate to be loved and accepted somewhere, by someone, would let him back in?) and get through life, but she supposed other people likely had some worse stories.
“Oh yeah, it’s good to know where you rank with the so called love of your life.” But she and Neal had been kindred spirits, they’d almost felt like they were fated to be together, to be something special. She doubted it was meant to be her giving birth in prison while Neal was god knew where. Possibly conning some other lost girl.
“I guess I’m just thankful it only happened there, and not in this life, right?”
“Yeah,” Veronica replied. “That’s one of the few good things about dreams. They remind you of how lucky you are to be living this life.” Of course there were always similarities. But for Veroncia, her dreams were a lot darker than the life she actually lived. Even if some of the things happened in both places. From what she read on the network and knew of her friends too, that also seemed to be the general consensus.
“You said that you stopped, like I assume after your dream life played out for you,” and the idea of that, of that happening for Emma, seeing all these things in her life that she didn’t have or didn’t do, it was startling. Enough that she was exceptionally apprehensive about just going to sleep most of the time, “Did that take long? Like have you been dreaming for all your life already or something?”
“I dreamed for about two years,” Veronica replied. She hadn’t exactly kept track but she knew it was over a year of dreams at least. “And then they stopped. They mostly revolved around high school, a little bit of college and then they jumped ahead ten years.” That had been jarring to say the least. She did have some questions about what happened in those years. But she supposed she would never know.
Dreaming for two years seemed like a harsh expectation, Emma wasn’t really sure if she could take that, two years of dreaming? If they stayed like this the whole time. But it didn’t seem like time was linear for Veronica’s dreams.
“God, I really hope this isn’t going to last two years.” Or longer, “It’s like a crappy drama but I’m the main cast member that keeps getting kicked about.” And she wasn’t in it for that. “How did you stay sane?”
“Trust me, I know how that feels.” While there were a lot of people in her dreams, everything still seemed to center around her. Or maybe she just thought that because it was her dreaming it. Maybe to Logan everything was centered around him. But still, she understood what Emma was going through.
“Lots of alcohol. And talking about them helped too. Do you have anyone here that you share dreams with?” Not that it had to be someone who was in her dream world. But it helped.
Lots of alcohol seemed to be how she was going to need to go with that, if she were honest she was surprised her dream self hadn’t gone on that. “I think that might be the only real answer.” Because there was no way she could afford therapy for this stuff.
“Not that I know of,” her son might be the same one she gave up, since he was born from the same two people in the dreams and here, but she hadn’t seen Neal since their one night stand and morning after, and he wasn’t a part of her dreams anymore either. “Not that I think any of them would be too helpful.” Short of Mary Margaret and Ruby, it was like Emma’s presence in town was just messing up people’s lives. “It’s a shame though, I think Graham would’ve been a real help.”
“You never know. Sometimes people come around.” Veronica could have said the same for the beginning of her dreams. All she really had was her dad and Wallace. But it didn’t take long for that to change. Hopefully it would be the same for Emma. “I’m going to need to hear more about this Graham,” Veronica replied with a smirk.
Emma laughed a little, “Graham is the Sheriff in Storybrooke, where my dreams are. He actually had to book me because of a car crash leaving town.” And while that was awkward, it wasn’t the worst thing that happened, toss in Graham offering her a job while she stayed in Storybrooke? She sort of felt like there were some sparks between them. “He’s my boss now, but… He’s really understanding, even with weird stuff.”
She guessed he probably had to be with Storybrooke being what it was. “He’s not bad to look at either.”
“Sounds like this Graham is a lot more than just a friend,” Veronica commented with a knowing smirk. “Or at least he wants to be.” Because really, who gave someone a job that they had previously booked? And from Emma’s last comment it sounded like she wouldn’t mind being more than friends either.
Emma had to admit she wasn’t sure what Graham was, other than one of maybe two people who didn’t seem cowed by Regina’s interference, someone who at least seemed to want to help her. And maybe she’d embarrassed herself the first time they met, but it wasn’t like Graham was holding that against her, since he’d even given her a job.
“Maybe, who knows.” She knew there was something there, but she wasn’t sure what it was yet. “Not too sure that getting involved with my boss is a good idea, but then, I’m not the best at good ideas anyway.”
“Probably not,” Veronica agreed. “But in the dreams we don’t always tend to make the best choices.” In fact it was always pretty much the opposite of it. Veronica couldn’t even count the number of times she wanted to yell at her dreamself for the things she did.
It didn’t stick to the dreams, if Emma’s past choices really led into things. But scrunching her face up, Emma just sighed, what would happen would happen, and it wasn’t like she had control over the dreams at all. “I guess that’s just something to deal with.” Hopefully nothing too terrible. And hopefully for something worthwhile.