Who: Lina and Veronica, with baby Amelia and Backup What: A much needed frozen yogurt date with their respective babies When: Recent, maybe today? Where: A park Rating/Warning: Squeaky clean Status: Complete!
It seemed like all of Veronica’s friends were popping out kids lately. She was used to being around babies now (after all she had lived with one for a few months). But baby Amelia, or as Veronica preferred Little Veronica was pretty damn cute. Veronica Mars was definitely becoming a softie when it came to babies and Backup had taken a liking to Lina’s little one too.
“So,” Veronica said as she shoveled a spoonful of mango froyo into her mouth. They were sitting on a bench in a park, Backup continued to get up and sniff Amelia’s stroller. Making sure she was safe. “When can you start drinking again? Don’t get me wrong I love our froyo dates but it’s been too long since we got kicked out of a bar.”
Amelia was adorable, and she’d deny the maternal bias in that thought too - about ten weeks old, still relatively tiny (chances are she’d inherit her smallness from her mother, just like her mother inherited it from the grandma), but she was making faces and kicking those bitty feet and making bubbles with her spit. Still kept them up all hours of the night, but it got easier once the weeks passed and they could differentiate between ‘crying because baby needs something’ and ‘crying because being a baby is so hard and wah wah wah.’
Baby in the stroller, the hood of it was up to protect her from the relentless sunrays - same with the little summer hat with a bow, and an outfit that was light but kept her cool. Her blue eyes were distracted by dangly shiny things, and her small hands reached for them while she suckled quietly on her pacifier.
“Mmmmm,” was the beginning of Lina’s reply, right in the middle of swallowing the cold dessert. “I’m sticking to beer but I still gotta watch it. My boobs are currently being held hostage.” And were often sore because having a bundle of human attached to her chest every two hours hurt after a while, jesus - could she stick a bag of frozen peas down her shirt? Parts of motherhood were just painfully awkward. It burned the baby weight quick, though, and with the bits of magic she still tossed around on a frequent basis the sorceress’ body had been bouncing back nicely. “First night of actual drinking’s going to be a mess on my end. I’ll take a shot and probably pass out on the floor. I haven’t gotten drunk in a year.”
At least she’d be a cheap date.
“Well that I’m going to have to see,” Veronica replied shoveling another spoonful into her mouth. Backup got up again to sniff around the stroller. With how much he checked on Amelia you’d think the baby was his. But Backup always had been the protective type. It was what he was trained for… at least in dreams.
“But seriously a year without alcohol? Just another reason why I’ll never have a kid.” Poor Logan. Veronica knew behind that tough exterior of his armed with sarcasm, he was just a huge softie. Wanted that whole white picket fence life. “I don’t know how my mom did it.” Hell who even knew if Lianne had abstained for the nine months she’d been pregnant with Veronica given her history with alcohol.
“Hey, it’s not for everyone - best to regret not having a kid than regret having one, y’know?” Lina didn’t mind the superficial sacrifices, she was in love with her diaper-soiling creation and so was Pete. Even more when she finally hushed down and let her parents sleep. “I knew a guy whose mom drank during her entire pregnancy, and he came out without anything...weird, or deformed, I guess. It’s disgusting, but some people just get lucky that way.”
Nevermind that the spawn born from an intoxicated pregnancy turned out to be a hit man, but… nature versus nurture, that sort of thing.
A hand reached out to scritch right behind Backup’s ears, he was being such a good boy. Aww. “Anyway, I’m back at work so we can try to sneak off for a little happy hour? Soon-ish. Still beer for me, but it’s better than nothing.”
That was some logic Veronica could get behind. Wouldn’t be fair to the poor kiddo if their parents regretted having them. Not that she was a hundred percent sure she would, but she did know enough to know she didn’t want one right now. Besides there were enough babies around to keep that small motherly need fulfilled.
“I’m sure it happens all the time.” Alcoholics, drug addicts. They all got knocked up. Sperm didn’t discriminate. Sucked for the kids though. “Some people just aren’t meant to be parents.” She obviously wasn’t referring to Lina and Pete with that comment. Or Emma and Neal, or Sharon for that matter.
“Count me in. As long as there are no rifts or demons or whatever else the fuck this wonderful place decides to throw at us I’m up for sneaking off.”
“I’d like to promise that, but…” Lina trailed off, motioning to their environment in general because, uh - duh? Last time they had their traditional frozen yogurt excursion rabid monkeys decided to play trampoline on the roof of her (new, fuck you very much) car. So far the skies were clear, there was no panicked screaming in the distance, and everyone had the right set of genitals.
Overall, it was a good day.
Anyway, she looked forward to getting out a little more - she spent eight weeks in the house with Amelia, which had its ups and down. There were cute moments, happy moments, exhausting moments, and those less than proud moments where she wanted to just sit and cry with the infant too because what do you want, child, quiet down. “But, yeah, aside from the trial and error lessons of parenting and my second set of dreams ending, it’s tame on my end. What about you, RonRon?”
It was always good to be alert and their froyo dates did seem to be cursed. Well it was either that or Lina’s car. Whatever car she had. They had been attacked in both. But came with living in Orange County really. “I guess there are worse people to be attacked with,” she quipped. But really at least Lina had the whole magic thing going. And now Veronica was not only incredibly skilled with her taser but she had become quite skilled with a firearm too. Thank you Garrus. The insanity wasn’t half as intimidating as when she first arrived.
“Try not to fu- mess up Little Veronica too much,” another quip but she did her best not to swear in front of the little one. Even if the baby couldn’t quite understand yet. “Second set ended? Did you destroy the world in that one too?” There had been no crazy storms and Lina hadn’t died again so she was going to guess no. Or it just hadn’t bled over. “Not much on my end. Still no new dreams. Just dealing with the bouts of crazy that happen around here.”
Gods, she hoped she wouldn’t mess up the little one either - generally, she was confident about her parenting abilities (lots of love, laugh in the face of stress otherwise she’d punch a stranger in the throat for existing), but sometimes the little voices of doubt rose. It was natural. Pete assured her she was doing a good job, she was assuring him the same, so it’d be alright in the end.
“There was no actual world destruction,” Lina drawled, brows furrowed. “Just the almost moments that end up working out in the end.” The demons in her world had the simple purpose of bring the world back into the abyss, but she was the only one with the means to do it - even if it was a catastrophic side-effect of a spell gone wrong. Guess Hellmaster thought it was easier to pull her puppet strings into casting it than finding a piece of Shabranigdo to awaken and do the deed, but the last one that did resurrect was destroyed. “It just didn’t leak over here. Once was enough, and I think the Lord of Nightmares sort of likes me enough to let me live my life? I don’t want to feel responsible for another fiasco. It’s actually kinda depressing.”
Veronica didn’t actually think Lina would fuck up the kid. She was just joking. Which hopefully Lina knew. But maybe she shouldn’t joke about that sort of thing to a new parent.
“Well as long as it worked out in the end,” she quipped another bite of frozen goodness shoved into her mouth. “I guess I’m lucky no almost end of the world shit happened in my dreams to bleed over here.” The worst that could happen was a bus load of kids getting blown up. Or a serial rapist who liked to shave girls heads suddenly showed up. But those weren’t really the types of things that bled over so Veronica was fairly certain she was safe. Though she was a bit wary of Logan’s dad given who he was in their dream world. But that was about the extent of it. “But,” she said getting a bit more serious now, showing her softer side. “You shouldn’t feel responsible for what happened. We can’t control dreams. Just don’t die again.” Hard to believe that was almost a year ago now.
“Better knock on wood with a statement like that,” warned the sorceress, an auburn brow raised at her words. Parallels were all too common, and they weren’t strictly confined to the realm of magics and aliens. “And I’ve got no plans to die anytime soon, trust me - I wouldn’t want you to have another froyo wifey, you know. I’ll get jealous from beyond the grave.”
Lina survived on what she called ‘incredibly stupid luck’ and ‘pulling ideas out of bowels on a whim’ - the times she had died (twice in each version of the dreams, technically, what the fuck) the, uh, means to come back were there to do the trick.
Amelia spit out her pacifier and it landed on her lap - she seemed like she wanted to gnaw on her fingers with those pink gums, she must taste delicious to herself! “Anyway, I’m honestly surprised you haven’t done your own fancy PI gig or something. I’m sure there’s a bunch of scandalous mysteries thanks to human vice ready to be figured out. You’re happy with the Agency job overall?”
Veronica stood up walking over to the nearest tree to knock on it. “I think that ‘otta do it,” she quipped walking back to the bench. Backup of course followed her to and from the tree. He could be so clingy sometimes. “Don’t worry. I will never have another froyo wifey. Hell I couldn’t even look at froyo last time. Too many memories,” that was mostly a joke. Though there was some truth to it. “So no need to haunt me.”
Of course Veronica had thought about going the PI route. Taken the test, gotten her license and everything. But living here, the Agency just seemed like a better fit. She wanted to be where the fight was. “The PI biz isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. Sure there are some scandals, murders, missing people but it’s mostly catching cheating spouses.” At least that was what paid the bills in her dreams. “Besides the PD here is a lot more competent than in Neptune. At least Logan and Leon. Just don’t tell the I said that,” another smirk. “But yeah I’m happy at the Agency. My coworkers aren’t so bad either.”
Yeaaaaaaaah. From the sounds of it, Veronica had been doing the work for Neptune’s po-pos. Gotta question their skills if a high school student was running around solving crimes there. “Secret’s safe with me,” Lina snickered. “Leon’s actually alright though. A little bit uptight, but alright.” Even if he did arrest her and both ended up going down on YouTube in infamy after that stunt, but months later he’d shown up at her front door with the shoes that’d been stolen and the two sorta made friends?
“It’s not a bad gig though, the Agency. It’s quiet when shit isn’t hitting the fan, but I spend most of my time researching - I would be doing it regardless, so it’s nice to get paid for it at least?” That was more of her strong suit anyway; burying her nose in one of the tombs she’d received, diddling with the Claire Bible, putting spells together and figuring out what worked and what didn’t. Mad sorceress experimentations. “Ohhh, and Carter said she’s going to start implementing an on-site daycare, which meaaaaans…”
Mostly done with her once-towering froyo cup of a conglomerate of sorbet flavors and toppings, she set it aside and began to dislodge the itty-bitty firestarter from her stroller. Amelia was smiling, and made spit bubbles, and there was a long string of drool coming from her mouth. So appetizing. “We’ll have an honorary co-worker. Amelia gives riveting, philosophical insights in a lot of topics - you just gotta learn to translate the sophisticated language of baby-babble. Right, munchkin?”
Drooooooooooooooooooooooool.
“Yeah, and he has a thing against the Agency.” But overall Veronica couldn’t complain about Leon. He put up with her shit which made him a good friend in her book. “I almost forgot you two know each other. Thank god, there’s proof,” she quipped.
“Right there with you,” Veronica agreed. There was no way she could just sit still while all this weird shit was going on. No matter what Veronica would be researching and fighting. It was just her nature. Might as well get paid for it. “Now we just need to add a dog care.” Of course that was a joke, but it would be nice to always have Backup around. “Oh yeah, I’ll be sure to run all my theories by Amelia from now on.” Hell maybe she would, she couldn’t translate the babble that came out of the infant but hey at least babies were good listeners.
“How’s that sound, Amelia?” Veronica said in a baby voice she barely ever used.
Amelia’s response was the appearance of a gummy-smile that made her eyes squint - really, nowadays she’d smile at anything that caught her attention. “Hey, beg her for a ‘bring your dog to work day’ thing, some offices do that!” Lina snickered her suggestion, shifting to cradle the baby on the nook of her arm. And she even made sure to let those fiery curls fall to touch her nose - she seemed to often be captivated by her mother’s hair, and touched it with those slobbery fingers.
“But, yeah, we’ll definitely be planning a happy hour date in the near future. Same place as always? I’m looking forward ordering something else besides a goddamn Shirley Temple for once.” Even if it was just beer, it was a stride towards a familiar routine she missed.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say those words.” Almost a year to be exact. “It’s a date.”