The Universe's Mixer

Veronica wasn't exactly the girliest of girls, but since finding herself stuck in the City, she was really missing her female friends. Especially Mac.

Her interaction with female people had been limited to work, and to one lunch with Lois Lane.

She needed people to hang out with that weren't in law enforcement, and weren't Logan. And hopefully she wouldn't ruin their lives.

Veronica left work and headed to a bar to grab a drink, thinking about all of this and looking around the bar for other women her age. There weren't many, but there were a few. It was a Tuesday, so this wasn't the big drinking weekend crowd, just people on their way home.

She took a seat next to a girl that looked a little older than her, maybe, with dark hair and big eyes. Once she'd ordered her drink and convinced the bartender she wasn't 12, Veronica said hi.

In her best, non-crazy, non-stalkery way.

Here was hoping she wasn't anything like Parker.

It was 'date night' for Logan and Veronica. Which meant that he had the night off from Caritas and he'd actually been able to pry her away from her case long enough to watch the Big Lebowski and eat some takeout. Logan hadn't seen a whole lot of his girlfriend lately, so he'd actually made an effort to clean up the discarded beer bottles and pizza boxes so his apartment was presentable.

Man, he missed having a maid or at least room service.

Unfortunately, those days were behind him which meant that his apartment usually looked like the typical slob's bachelor pad. Which meant that it had taken the better part of an hour to get it looking more like... a slightly neater bachelor pad.

The food had already been delivered, which meant he was just waiting on Veronica. He was already hoping that he could distract her from the movie after they'd had the chance to eat. Especially since they hadn't seen that much of each other lately. Hey, he'd missed her and all the things that went along with seeing her on a regular basis.

The investigation was going pretty well.

It was tiring, and Veronica really had expected that. She was an intern. She did a lot of grunt work that was beneath her. Some of it really wasn't, but she thought it was. And that did a lot to color her perception of it.

After Christmas with Logan, it was back to the office and pouring over crime scene photos. Veronica was running out of puns.

There'd been a new lead, one she was hoping to check out this afternoon. Veronica would be heading back to the crime scene, just to do a once-over, then back to the office. She'd been to that damn tree more times than she cared to count.

There was a press release sitting in her in-basket that she hadn't seen yet. Veronica knew the press agent was fishing for things to feed a hungry bunch of reporters who really wanted to print more on the story.

Just as she picked the release up, and started to curse, Veronica's phone started to ring. The phone on her desk.

"Mars," she said. It was both a greeting and a question.

Logan didn't usually like Christmas. Christmas at the Echolls household had involved big showy parties where everything was over-the-top and everyone looked the other way while his dad had snuck off with half the female guests at the party. Then there was the actual day of, which usually involved presents (the good) and fights, generally of the particularly nasty kind that Logan preferred to repress.

Repressing was always good.

All his dislike for Christmas aside, he knew that Veronica did like Christmas. He also knew that this was her first Christmas where she didn't even have the option to celebrate with her dad. While he couldn't literally relate to missing a father, he knew how close Veronica was with her father and he knew that this time of year might be hard for her.

Which was why he was more than willing to celebrate Christmas with his girlfriend. He was doing well at Caritas, though not nearly as well as when he'd been living off the trust fund. All the same, he was doing well enough to get something nice for her.

So he showed up, right on time, at Veronica's apartment and pushed the buzzer to be let in.

Veronica was glad she was nuts enough to carry around a flashlight in her bag with her laptop.

She was out checking on a few facts with the police department about that murder she was dealing with on an intern-like basis. She'd gotten out the doors of the department when everything went black.

EVERYTHING.

The streetlights went out, and when they did, Veronica heard a car's brakes screech, and then what sounded like a huge crash. Car alarms followed. She sighed, looking up as lightning lit up the sky. She was gonna get soaked getting home, and a taxi looked like a bad idea.

She grabbed the flashlight out of her bag, a big mag light, and started walking, blond hair already getting plastered to her head. At least she'd worn boots today. With a slight smile on her face, Veronica found a puddle and jumped in it.

Of course, that was around the time she realized there was someone nearby, watching. That was okay, though. She was a huge dork. And she had a tazer and mace in her bag.

Deacon wasn’t a foolish man. He didn’t let his guard down around people he didn’t know, and he never drank blood unless he was holding a limp body or owned the bloodbank it was from.

So how exactly he’d ended up lying on what appeared to be a bed, in a strange room, was a complete mystery. Leaning up on his elbows, he looked around the room. Clean, crisp white bedcovers over crimson sheets, minimalist monochromatic furniture, and his clothes laid out over a chair. Yeah, this definitely looked like a place he would live.

But he’d be damned if he could remember ever being here before in his life. The last thing he remembered...standing in that temple, stench of dust and dried blood in his nose, the feel of Blade’s blood dripping down his face...and then nothing.

Maybe it hadn’t worked. Maybe something had happened, and he’d found his way here. Wherever here was. Sitting up, he slid out of bed, pulling on the pants that lay ready. Shirt on, sleeves cuffed to just below his elbows, and shoes. Now he felt ready to face whatever was out there.

He could tell the apartment was empty, at least. And as he walked around, he knew he lived here. Could smell it. Hell, he could tell just from the way everything was decorated. This place wasn’t too bad. Bit of a stepdown from the penthouse, but that he could live with. There was a cellphone sitting on a desk in the living room, but the contact list was empty. He tried Mercury’s cell...nothing. Quinn...nothing.

Looked like he was on his own. Shrugging on a black leather jacket - his, he remembered the scuff mark on the sleeve, the faint scratch next to the collar where Mercury had caught the leather instead of skin when she'd tried to scratch him in a rage - he slipped the phone into the inside pocket. He patted the coat down, trying to work out if he had cigarettes...nope. Well, at least that gave him a reason to venture outside. It looked like the sun had just set, and while he didn't recognise the skyline, he knew going out into the streets was the only way he was going to find anything out.

after this

Early in the morning, the phone on the desk in Veronica Mars's apartment starting ringing. And it did not stop. Shortly after, her cell phone started ringing and did not stop. Bleary eyed, Veronica answered her cell phone, checking the number beforehand. She did not recognize it.

"Ms. Mars?"

She yawned and stifled it. "Yes, who's this?"

"Ms. Mars, this is Daisy over at the City's field office. We've got your name in our system as a former member of our summer internship program."

"Oh, hi, yes, that'd... make sense."

"There's an investigation we'd like you to be a part of, assuming you're interested in continuing your Bureau training."

"Definitely."

There was some typing on the other end of the phone line. "Please bring your Bureau I.D. and also your P.I. license when you come in. Also, I know it's a weird question, but if you showed up here with a gun, you're allowed to carry that, too, as long as the Bureau issued it."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Thank you, Ms. Mars. Please get here as soon as you can this morning. Ask for me in reception and I'll get you where you need to go."

Veronica thanked her and hung up. She took the world's fastest shower, texted Logan something gleeful about the good turn of events, and hurried out the door.

When she arrived at the building the receptionist directed her to, she found her and showed her her trainee badge.

"Hi there, Ms. Mars," Daisy the receptionist said. "Have you ever worked on a murder investigation?"

Yet another night at Caritas was winding down. Logan still hadn't quite gotten used to the elaborate make-up and prosthetics worn by about half the clientele, and by his boss. He really wasn't sure what to make of the posted rules referring to vampires with souls and trans-dimensional ejection for not tipping, except to conclude that Lorne had a strange sense of humor.

For that matter, Lorne himself was a little strange. Nice and a lot of fun to work with, but not exactly like anyone Logan had ever met.

He absentmindedly wiped down the counter with a bar rag as he waited for the last of the patrons to finish their songs and drinks and shuffle out. He did his best not to wince at the particularly bad rendition of 'I Will Survive' currently being... well, performed was too kind a word for what it was really.

It was a typical day for Jesse Custer. He moved about The City, watching out for things he could help with. Seeing if there were any new faces about. Occasionally playing with the stupid fucking phone thing that The City had given him. Occasionally even doing the right thing with it. He had breakfast in a diner and lunch in a diner. It didn't compare to Zoe's cooking, of course. Nothing compared to a nice home cooked meal. But Jesse just wasn't the kind of guy who spent a lot of time doing his own work in the kitchen. There were simple things he could do, eggs, bacon, pancakes for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch. But sometimes it was just easier to eat someplace else. Besides, it meant that he didn't have to clean, either.

He was currently standing outside said chosen lunch establishment, lighting his post meal cigarette. He looked in the direction of a couple of young guys who were having an argument about god. He shook his head.

"May not be no God here," He said to himself. "But he existed at one time."

Not to mention there was, well, himself. Maybe people didn't pray to him and ask him to bless their dinners and watch over their sick grandmas, but there were people here who knew very well what he could do. People who trusted in his abilities. Maybe one or two who revered him. Just a little.

He turned to walk from diner and continue on his random path through The City and came face to face with a blonde. At least he didn't actually run into her like he had Castiel. Didn't do much good to be God if you couldn't so much as tell when another person was walking toward you.

"Scuse me, darlin" He gave her a smile and waited for her to go around so they didn't end up doing that stupid dance trying to get by one another.

After some serious thought, Veronica took out an ad in the City paper and put up a web site Mac would've been sort of proud of. She still intended to get back to FBI work, if she could, but for now, she needed money, and she'd take the cases she could get as a PI.

Mars Investigations was back. Only this time, it was hers, and not her dad's.

Her first bite for a case left her with some interesting flashbacks to 'Ghostbusters': the librarian thought someone was trying to scare her to death. Apparently there had been some pranks and some... poltergeist-like things happening in the place. Could Veronica hang around there, see if there was anything going on?

Yes. She could.

So now, at 9 on a Thursday night, she was sitting in the fiction section with a flashlight, her camera, a taser, and a candy bar. Waiting for something to happen. The library closed at 6:30. It was quiet, and she'd had plenty of time to look around. It was much bigger and much more impressive than the one she worked in at Hearst. There were some glass cases here that were... really, really disturbing. They weren't what she was here for, but she couldn't help looking at them and wondering about them. Logan's surfboard? Here? Lilly's plaque? That was hanging in the foyer area of the... she guessed museum was the word... wing of the library. And then there was the case full of medical drawings, with a name on them that really scared her. Hannibal Lecter? An eye in a jar? What exactly was going on here?

She'd get to the bottom of this.
Once she figured out why she was hearing footsteps.

When Veronica got home from the ball, she looked at the little box that they'd given her. The instructions said to fold the paper... and a wish would be revealed.

After the weird time-and-space travel-filled evening she'd had, Veronica was okay with a free wish.

She sat down on her bed, high heels off, now, still in her beautiful green dress. And she started folding.

The paper made a tiny cup, and when she finished folding it, words appeared on the side.

I Got Baked in Ensenada


Veronica smiled. Lilly.

She'd missed Lilly all night, too. She'd have loved the masquerade. She'd have been the belle of the ball. She picked the paper cup up, turning it in her hand, completely focused on it.

"I thought I told you you were red satin."

Veronica blinked. Her focus shifted.

Standing in her bedroom, dead center, stood Lilly Kane. "I mean, the green's nice. Very... sleek. But I think you're more of a red."

Veronica couldn't do anything but blink and stare.

"Is that all you got?" Lilly pushed her long hair behind her ears and sat on the bed next to Veronica. "Really? No, 'oh it's great to see you? No 'I missed you?' No--"

Before Lilly could finish Veronica was hugging her. She was real. She was real and she was here and she was alive. And Veronica was crying quietly into her shoulder.

Lilly hugged her back. "So what's been going on?" She pushed Veronica away gently, with a slight smile. "I mean, since I died I'm not really up on everything."

"Uh." Logan. She couldn't tell Lilly about Logan.

"Do you have anything to drink?" Lilly was up and heading to the kitchen.

And Veronica thought she was either dreaming or still in the asylum. There were cupboard noises, and pouring noises.

Her dead best friend, the girl whose death had changed Veronica's life completely, was standing in the kitchen, getting glasses of wine.

Veronica followed her. "Lilly. How...?"

"You wished me here. You wished, I'm here. I don't know how it works, really."

Veronica gulped. "Is it permanent?"

Lilly made a face, twisting her lips, thinking. "I'm not really sure. I know... I was somewhere. I was resting... and now I'm..." The face turned a little pained. "I'm here."

Please continue your ball threads here

With everything in full swing, the waiters and waitresses were moving about people like ants. Able to sneak between groupings without bothering anybody, constantly in motion, trays balanced perfectly on one hand. As if they were in a choreographed number.

The sounds of chatter could be heard in the room, above the clinking of crystal glasses and silverware, adding a strangely calming ambiance to the whole scene. The music played on, as if the band would never tire.

Here and there, party favors were being activated, used, sometimes confusing their recipients, other times bringing great joy.

The invitations started raining on The City's citizens at half past 11 on the morning of March 31st. In standard City style, the things were addressed to each person specifically -- and nigh unavoidable. Dressed in black curlicues and elegant script, the parchment invitations heralded the black-tie Magical Springtime Masquerade, where wishes would be granted -- for that very night, 7:00 sharp. No R.S.V.P. necessary, it promised, and fine script at the bottom also advised that the City had taken the liberty of stocking the wardrobes of its citizens with masquerade-appropriate fineries, gratis. From all appearances, it looked like the City was ready to host a grand affair.

And grand indeed it was. Just a block north of the Clock Tower, the City Opera House threw open its doors at exactly 7 p.m. Red carpet rolled down the grand marble steps. Warm candlelight beckoned with gentle, clinging fingers to those in the chilly spring night air, and the merry tinkling of crystal glasses and laughter from the Grand Foyer welcomed with warmth in even greater degrees.

As guests arrived, tuxedoed gentlemen stationed at the doors accepted invitations with one hand and passed host gifts with the other. Each host gift, elegantly tucked away in a bag emblazoned with the guest's name, included two items: the first was either a masque, a ring, or a hat matching the attire of the guest, and the second was a small box without seams, hinges, locks or opening of any sort. Everyone seemed to have received this second gift, and everyone also received the same note attached to it: "For your enjoyment between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. April 1st"

The night was full and bright, and there was plenty of time yet to ponder the mysteries of that small gift box. For now, the party began in full force, with plenty of wine, music, and merriment. And as the guests began to don their party favors, each discovered something else...

Yes, it was going to be an excellent party indeed!

Logan approached Veronica's apartment building with caution, halfway expecting it to jump out of the way on him. He still hadn't quite wrapped his head around how the City worked or the fact that he seemed to keep forgetting where things were. He would think a restaurant, say, was on one street and then be completely unable to find it until he would run into it halfway across town.

None of it fit, and adding to that confusion were the now-healing puncture wounds on his neck and the strange woman in the park. He'd thought about things more, and it didn't quite make sense that Veronica would set up a 'temptation scenario' when they'd just gotten back together. Then again, he knew that Veronica's trust issues ran deep and perhaps... Logan sighed as he felt his mind pulled into the circular reasoning yet again. Something about 'Red' was off, and more than just someone playing a part.

The best way to find out what had happened with Red and most likely even get some ideas about what might have caused puncture marks on his neck without his remembering anything was to just suck it up and ask Veronica.

So, he stood outside the door to her apartment, pondering over the buzzer system. His eyes found the button for 'V. Mars' almost instantaneously, but he couldn't quite bring himself to push it. Visiting her unannounced was intimidating in itself, but doing so when he was weighed down with questions that he wasn't sure he wanted the answers for was even worse.

Veronica sipped loudly at her frothy coffee drink. She had her laptop open, and was looking through job listings.

She had web sites open for the City's police department, and something about a place called Angel Investigations...

She sipped again thoughtfully.

Did she want to try to be a part of the FBI, here? She thought so. She could restart her dad's business, but if these Angel people were already doing that, would she end up looking for lost dogs?

The coffee shop was pretty quiet, so when the door opened, Veronica's head turned toward it to see who was coming in.

Every morning, Veronica read the paper. Some mornings it happened later than others, but it always happened. She simply had to be informed to do her job. And this morning... this morning, when she got to the personals (a favorite with her and her Dad, and always entertaining or heartbreaking), Veronica had dropped her newly-purchased coffee on the pavement:


Former playboy turned one-woman man seeking that woman. She's tiny, blonde, sometimes annoying, stubborn, headstrong, too smart for her own good. Smells of marshmallows and promises. If you're here, please call ♥221166


After responding to the personal ad that she knew was directed at her, Veronica went over to the newspaper office, her heart thudding in her throat.

Logan.
( Logan was here. )

Fangtasia aside, Veronica was adjusting to the City reasonably well.

She'd found a key in her pocket she didn't recognize, but it was attached to her other keys--including the key to her room in Quantico. With a little bit of work, and a few phone calls, she'd found the building it belonged to.

It was an apartment building.

She looked at the mailboxes and call buttons, searching for her name. And sure enough, it was there. V. MARS 423. A dark haired girl with huge eyes had smiled at her. She must be a neighbor, Veronica figured.

She'd gone up to the fourth floor, found 423, and keyed the lock.

And gasped.

The bedroom was half her room in Neptune, and half her room in Quantico. The bed was her bed at home. Her closet had her clothes she'd taken for the internship.

And the living room looked like the waiting room from her Dad's office. There was even a stained-glass window.

Veronica put her bag down and sat down hard on the couch, looking around. She half expected Backup to come running in, or her dad to ask her to file something. The filing cabinet that'd belonged to her during high school was there--next to what looked exactly like her desk.

She thought of something, and her hand covered her mouth.

Getting up, Veronica went back to the closet and opened the door again.

The gear that came with the internship was there. There was an FBI sweatshirt, all of her reports and books were on the floor in a box, and... the gun they'd given her was in the box, too.

Veronica closed the closet door and put her back on it, then slid down the wall and sat there. She felt like crying. It was nice to know what the City expected of her--and to know it was what she wanted for herself, too, to continue down the road to becoming Agent Mars, instead of just Veronica Mars, PI. She had to decide what to do-- to go to the City's law enforcement offices, open her own investigation business...

"I wish you were here," she said, to no one in particular.

Eric looked around the bar. Appearance wise, it was exactly how he wanted it. Everything was in it's place. The location, however, was still bothering him. He hadn't even really left to explore at all, so he had no idea what was out there. He'd decided that the best way to get to know the people was to draw them in. So he'd had the posters put up by one of the stupid girls who had come to work for him.

He'd thought the twit human he'd had before was bad. The ones, other than George, who had come to find work with him had proven to be no better than goldfish. They had wide, sparkly eyes and ridiculously puckered lips and seemed to drift in circles until he told them specifically what they should be doing. It was obnoxious. He hated all of them. But he couldn't open the bar until he had a staff, and unfortunately, they were the best he could find on short notice. He wasn't willing to put off opening for too long. He needed something to do. Something to keep his mind from stewing about the strange things he'd discovered. Such as - apparently they didn't need deliveries. Every day the bar was refreshed with product. The fact that things around his bar seemed to change on the outside. The store that was across the way one day was not the store that was across the way the next.

At this point, he just needed distraction. Distraction and a way to meet people. Both of which the bar was good at.

Right at ten sharp, he unlocked the front door and placed one of the girls outside as the greeter. He'd rather have had a vampire out there, but as he didn't know any here, he had to make due with what he had. It had caused him a brief amount of wonder, were there any other vampires in this place? He'd sensed nor smelled none since he'd been here, at least not close by. That was both disconcerting and rather interesting. Imagine, being the only vampire in a city. What he could do with that.

Eric returned to his throne at the back of the bar. The place he always sat when the doors opened. Through most of the night, as well. Ready for humans and vampires alike to present themselves to him. It was also the place with the best view of the entire club. There wasn't a corner he couldn't see into, save for the other rooms in back. Luckily he could hear well enough to know if there was anything undue going on back there.

The girls waited for their first customers. A couple danced lazily, joined by a handful of males, at various places scattered about the large open room. Some with poles, some just up on especially sturdy tables. Things he'd arranged for vampires to dance on, not normal humans. But what could he do?

There hadn’t been any warning that today was going to be any different form the days that had preceded it. He figured he’d wake up, do the sort of zombie, on some serious medication shuffle that he had spent the last however many days it was, doing. Then sleep. Wake up. Repeat. Except the doctor (or at least Eddie thought that it was a doctor, he had a white coat on, seemed like a doctor) after Eddie had greeted him with a “what’s up doc?” (however many days he’d been here -- that still hadn’t gotten old) had told Eddie he was free to go. Eddie (who was feeling more himself, more alert, more awake) had given the doctor a wary look and then took the doctor at his word.

He had no real plan except getting the hell out of here. He figured once he got out of this place, he’d figure out where exactly he was, and what exactly was going on. But first he had to get away from all these medication happy Doctors, and then once that was done he’d figure out exactly where he was, and how he was going to get to where he needed to go.

When his personal possessions had been returned to him, Eddie had taken back possession of Roland’s revolver, and quipped that maybe it wasn’t a great idea giving a person who had just been in a asylum a weapon. Even as he “joked” about that, he had tightened his grip on the revolver, well aware that if they had tried to take it back there was going to be an issue. The person who was handing over his personal effects just gave Eddie a blank look, and told him that he was free to go.

So go he did. Right out the door, and standing there on an unfamiliar street Eddie glanced around.

“Now what?”

He was wearing a scarf.

It was a scarf that he'd been wearing the whole time he'd been here. It seemed wrong. He was pretty sure that he wasn't a scarf kind of guy. But he couldn't really recall much. His world was hazy in his memory. There were some really big things that kept popping into his brain, but he wasn't sure about them.

He kept thinking that he was God. But he had no abilities. No powers. But he was so sure that there had been something like that in his life. That he'd been able to do things and help people. He had this very watery memory of some hideously shaped thing, that he was the hideously shaped thing as well as it being an entity in and of itself. When he mumbled these thoughts at the nurses and doctors, they only smiled at him. The kind of smile that made him feel like a child. Like they were humoring him. It made him angry, but he couldn't really get angry enough to do or say anything about it. It was a strange, passing sort of anger.

And the goddamned scarf. Most of the time, he just sort of ignored it. It was plain black. It was soft. It hung around his neck in a single loop, both tails over his chest. It wasn't a particularly significant scarf, he didn't think. But when he tried to take it off, he couldn't. It just wouldn't come off. Sometimes as he was doing it, he forgot what he was doing. Other times, he would tug and tug and tug and nothing would get it to loosen. The only time this was really annoying was when he went to shower. The orderlies never said anything about it, that he seemed to want to never take this scarf off, but he had a feeling it wasn't normal to do that. To shower in a scarf.

He'd heard them once, actually, when they thought he wasn't near, they'd said "The guy thinks he's God and won't take that scarf off even when he showers. Why do you think he's in here?"

Jesse was allowed to wander around with the others now. Before he hadn't been. He couldn't be sure what changed, but he was glad to be out of the room, glad to be out of the restraints. He remembered those. He remembered how aggravating it was and how helpless he'd felt. They were gone now. Nobody put them on him anymore, even when he was in his room.

Right now he was on his way to the commons. They had a television in there. It was more often than not on a channel that played a lot of cartoons. He liked that. He liked when the lady came around with the snack cart, too, and he got to have crackers and juice. Or sometimes, every once in a while, cookies and milk. Those were really good days.