WHO: Veronica Mars (and Backup) WHAT: Reunited with the second best man in her life WHEN: Sunday night WHERE: Her apartment, then streets of Vallo WARNINGS: Brief mentions of violence/sexual assault STATUS: Complete
Veronica hadn't had a bad time since arriving in Vallo City. Sure, there was weird stuff. There were certain to be more weird stuff to come, if everyone was to be believed. Dr. Strange swapping bodies, finding out pixies were more mean and minotaurs less mean than she was lead to believe, and a very odd but loving community was probably more than she could expect for traveling through time and space. Or whatever had actually occurred. She had been friendly with quite a few people so far, so she figured that she had started to grow from the girl with the chip on her shoulder of just a couple years ago. Oh, the chip was there. It wouldn't fully go away after everything she had been through, but she wasn't sure how she would have handled something like this while she was still in high school. But Veronica was a survivor. She had always managed to, even though she'd have more calls than she'd like to admit. So far she hadn't ventured far into the city at night, the lights sending her into a feeling of creepy nostalgia. Something about them took her back to the night on the roof of the Neptune grand and to the terror and powerlessness she had felt confronted by Beaver. This place might have monsters, but the kind of monsters you could fight and not feel quite as conflicted about. What do you feel about a boy who had been assaulted, emotionally and physically abused, and who lashed out? Not that that could justify killing a bus of her classmates and...
Raping her.
Veronica thought that finding out Lilly's killer and her rapist would close the loop on her pain from those hurts. But it was not as neat as that. A big part of her still loved Logan, and what did it say that she hated his father and what he did, and was glad he was dead? What did it say about her that she could not, despite her best efforts, hate Beaver after all he had done? Her world was much less black and white now. And now her world was a literal new world, and she was all alone in it.
Veronica sighed as she put her keys in the door, ready to flop on her lonely bed and flip on the network until settling into a restless sleep. But as soon as she opened the door she was greeted by a familiar sight-Backup. HER Backup! She dropped to her knees, tears springing to her eyes. "Oh good boy! Good boy, Backup! It's you! Yeah it's you, buddy!" she cried, as he ran to her, whole body in wiggle mode. He covered her face in kisses, and she laughed as he licked her tears away. "About time!" she said, laughing as she hugged her large pitbull. She pulled back and looked into his soft brown eyes and her smile grew wide. "Well. Now that you're here, we should explore together huh, boy?" Backup sat dutifully, his tail wagging. Thankfully Veronica had listened to some of her fellow Outlanders and had gotten food, bowls, a bed, and of course, a harness and leash. She ran and grabbed those and fitted him up.
"Let's go find out what night in Vallo City is all about," she told her best friend, and he hopped up, eager to please her.
Things weren't perfect, but they just got a lot easier.