Logan lay down on the bed, yawning.


His life might not have been perfect, but it was as close to it as he could have ever hoped, and truth be told, it was more than he could have ever wished. He loved his job, he loved his kids, and he loved his wife. It still amazed him sometimes: he had actually gotten Veronica for keeps. She had agreed to marry him, to be with him in sickness and health until the day she dies. It still made him smile to think about.


Except now everything was falling apart. Veronica was tense at all times, even to the point that he worried about the baby, and she didn’t want to talk to him or anyone else. The boys were both worried and confused but there was no good way to answer their questions, and Marlie . . . she was always running away from them as fast as she could.


It wasn’t fair.


Lianne was just like his mother, and just as he had come to hate his mom, he hated Lianne. He had been there for Marlie. He had driven her to the doctor’s at three in the morning when she got the chicken pocks at age two. He had invented wild stories about princesses and castles and dragons to get her to sleep at night. He had taken her to her first day of kindergarten. He had let her sleep in his bed with him when she saw the movie Hocus Pocus and had nightmares for a week.


He had always been around to raise her and love her and make sure she was never scared or alone or hurt.


And all she was interested in was Lianne. How was that fair? But he couldn’t hate Marlie for that; he couldn’t be angry at her or even annoyed. He knew Veronica was. But he couldn’t be. He never could be. Veronica said he was too soft when it came to Marlie. She said he spoiled her. But he didn’t care.


He liked spoiling her. Or at least he had, when she’d stayed around the house for more than two seconds. All he wanted was for her to forget about Lianne, to forget about all the sordid past she was slowly learning and remember who really loved her and where she really belonged. But how could he make that happen?


“What are you thinking about?” Veronica asked suddenly.


He had thought she was asleep.


“Marlie,” he answered honestly. She didn’t reply, but he hadn’t expected her to. She didn’t like talking about Marlie now. She hated it, in fact. He knew it was killing her, what was happening. And he wished he could take that pain away; he wished he could make everything better for her and for Marlie and for himself. He couldn’t, though. He was helpless.


He thought about the baby. It was a girl. Would it be like Marlie? Would it be like Veronica? Would it be like him? He tired to imagine the female version of himself. He suddenly saw too many teenage boys hanging around. That was not going to happen. He’d send her to a convent first.


He’d told Marlie the same thing a few years ago. No boy, no matter how smart, wealthy, funny, intelligent, or attractive he might be, was going any where near his baby. The very thought drove him even crazier than the idea of boys going any where near Veronica had back before they were together for good.


Of course, when he’d told Marlie that he’d put her in a convent before he’d let a boy near her, she’d laughed and swatted his arm and told him, “Dream on, Daddy.” Where had that amazing girl gone? The one who smiled and laughed and called him Daddy? All he got from her now were disappointed, unhappy stares and sharp, one word answers. He sighed softly to himself.


The bed shifted as Veronica scooted close to him. She couldn’t exactly curl into him, but she pressed her side to his, grabbing his arm and wrapping it around her stomach. She was warm and soft in his arms and he breathed in that familiar smell. “I miss her,” Veronica whispered. Marlie was still around; they still saw her every night, even if on this particular night she had run from the house and straight to Lianne’s.


But Logan knew what his wife meant.


He pressed a kiss to her temple, his hand running over her stomach, over his tiny little baby growing inside this woman he loved so much. "Maybe you should tell her that," he said gently. She didn't reply. A part of him wanted to repeat the words, wanted to force her to listen and realize that she couldn't expect Marlie to understand everything without explanation.


But Logan knew it would be a waste of his time. “I miss her, too,” he whispered. A moment later he felt hot tears on his neck and the slight tremble of a silently crying Veronica in his arms, but he didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say, anyhow, and there was nothing Veronica wanted to hear.


He just pulled her even closer.


“Logan?” she asked a few minutes later, her voice even softer than before.


“Yeah?”


There was a pause. “Never mind,” she finally said.


He smiled to himself. “I love you, too, Veronica.”


“That wasn’t what I was going to say!” she protested.


“What were you going to say, then?” She didn’t reply immediately. “Veronica?” he pressed, not sure whether to be concerned or amused.


“I hope this baby loves me,” she told him, the words coming out hurriedly, and there was a note of vulnerability in her voice that was so rarely there. For an instant he was angry at Marlie for causing that vulnerability, that hurt, in Veronica. It faded, though; she was just a kid, after all. . . .


“This baby will love you,” he said, his voice firm. “The same way that Ben loves you and Jason loves you and . . . Marlie loves you.”


“I . . . I know,” she whispered, and the trace of vulnerability was stubbornly pushed aside. “Goodnight,” she told him, and he knew she had closed her eyes. He stared into the darkness for a moment. For so long in high school and college she hadn’t said it, but after all these years she had come to say it at least once a day, right before she fell asleep. Well, usually she did. She didn’t when they were fighting and she hadn’t done it very often lately. . . .


“I love you,” she said softly.


It was always what she said right before drifting off to sleep. He smiled, closing his eyes and imaging when everything with Marlie and Lianne would resolve itself and things would go back to normal. It had to eventually, right? “I love you, too.”
 

---

Veronica swung open the door to see a rather shocked Logan standing there. She wasn’t sure whether he was shocked by the fact that she obviously hadn’t showered in days, the bit of fresh spit-up on her shoulder, or the red-faced, screaming baby on her hip. “Hi. . . .” he greeted slowly.


“Hi, Logan,” she sighed, shifting Marlene from one hip to the other tiredly. She tried rocking the baby slightly but the small blonde continued howling. “Is everything okay?” she asked him. “Do you need something?”


It was about nine in the morning on a Saturday; she couldn’t begin to imagine what he was doing at her apartment.


“I just wanted to see how you were doing. I stopped by your dorm but Mac told me you had moved back with your dad and I . . . I just wanted to catch up and make sure everything was okay.”


Veronica gave him the best smile she could muster. It was kind of sweet of him. “I moved back because it was cheaper and because Dad needed help caring for the baby.”


“So . . . does this mean your mom’s back?”


Veronica scoffed. “No. That winner of a woman isn’t back. But she did leave a note when she abandoned her baby in a hotel room two weeks after the kid was born. So when they found a crying baby in an empty room. . . .”


“They gave you and your dad the baby?” he asked.


“They didn’t have many other options,” Veronica said, nodding. “And, you know, it’s what my loving mother told them to do in her heartfelt note.” She looked down at the baby, officially two months old yesterday. So much time had passed and yet no time at all.


Logan nodded as if he understood. But he didn’t move. It was obvious what he wanted. She resisted the urge to sigh. She had sort of missed him, and if he didn’t mind a screaming baby and the smelly, vomit mat that she had become, then what the hell.


“Do you want to come in?” she offered.


“Sure,” he said, smiling. She turned away, walking into the house and leaving the door open for him to follow her. She felt the smallest twinge of embarrassment at the state of the apartment: baby toys and clothing were scattered everywhere; the bookshelf in the living room had collapsed, spilling its contents across the ground, and it had yet to be picked up. Dishes were pilled high in the sink; Chinese takeout from the night before was still on the kitchen table.


But it was Logan. What the hell did he care? And even if he did, why should she care that he cared? She hadn’t even seen him since that time at the hospital, although that could have been because she had been spending all her free time with the baby.


“Looks like things are going well for you,” he said slowly, his eyes gazing around the house, “I’ve never seen the place this spic and span before.”


“Are you making a crack at my housekeeping skills, buddy?” Veronica asked him, cocking an eyebrow at him.


He raised his hands defensively. “I’d never, Miss Mars.”


Marlene was still screaming. At only two months old, the baby was the loudest thing Veronica had ever heard. She didn’t understand how Marlene could possibly have the strength to cry and scream that loudly for that long. She tried again to rock the baby but it was to no avail. “Come on, kid,” she muttered. “Come on.”


This would be so much easier if she knew something, anything, about babies.


Keith did, but he was working more than ever right now to try and scrounge up some more money, and Alicia did, but things were somewhat rocky with her and Keith, and Veronica wasn’t even sure that her dad had told his girlfriend that he was currently caring for his ex-wife’s baby.


“You — you got a little, you know, on your shoulder,” Logan told her, half nodding and half pointing at the spit-up.


“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she replied, rolling her eyes. She grabbed a dishtowel from the kitchen and wiped the spit up, before tossing the towel on top of the dishes. She’d clean it up eventually.


It was quiet for a few minutes while Logan stood awkwardly aside as Veronica tried to tempt Marlene into happiness with toys. “Want this teddy bear? It’s cute, right? Huh, want the teddy bear?” A small fist swatted wildly at the bear. “Come on, kid, what’s the bear ever done to you? Okay, fine, whatever. How about the Care Bear? It Cares about you! No, no, don’t like that one either. . . .”


“How are classes going for you?” Logan finally asked.


Veronica looked up at him slightly distracted. “Ah . . . fine, they’re fine. What about you? Are you — isn’t the hippo cute? Come on, kid, stop crying and play with the hippo! — are you going to your classes this year?”


“Actually, yes,” Logan replied. “I’m working on that whole being an upstanding citizen thing.”


“That working out for you?” Veronica asked tiredly.


“A bit. Hey, maybe it would be better if I came back later.”


Veronica looked up at him with a knowing smile. “Sure. I’ll . . . just see you around.” She sighed, getting up off her knees and depositing Marlie in her swing. She was still screaming, but Veronica had to go the bathroom so the kid would just have to scream. There was nothing Veronica could do.


She smiled at Logan, telling him, “I’ll see you later,” and wandering back to the bathroom. To her surprise, when she stepped back into the kitchen, Marlene was no longer crying. She wasn’t in her swing either.


Logan was holding her.


He had his keys out and was holding them over her. She was reaching for them and giggling, drooling a little. Veronica didn’t know what to think at the sight. Logan looked over at her, realizing she was back. “She likes the keys,” he said.


“I see that,” Veronica said softly, stifling a yawn.


“So . . . does this mean you and your dad are keeping the baby?” Logan asked hesitantly.


“I . . . I honestly don’t know,” she answered. “I don’t want to give her up for adoption. It seems so wrong. My dad’s looking for Lianne but he’s not having much luck finding her, and even if he does . . . could she really raise a kid? But it’s not easy trying to take care of her. I haven’t slept in days and . . . I don’t think we can do it. We don’t have the time or money or,” she let out a desolate chuckle, “or any of it.”


She hadn’t really said it all aloud to anyone. She knew it and her dad knew it so what was the point in saying it to one another? And in the past month and a half they had been pretty much in their own sad bubble, so who else was there to talk to? “I don’t even have time to think about it,” she said, rubbing her temple and yawning again.


“So . . . take some time,” Logan said softly.


“What?” Veronica frowned.


“I’ll babysit Marlene for you. Take her back to the Grand and introduce her to Dick. Don’t worry, though; I won’t let him touch her. You can get some sleep or shower or something. Whatever.”


Veronica didn’t really know what to say. “I don’t know, Logan. . . .”


“I’m not gonna kill the kid, Veronica. I can take care of her for two hours. If I can’t handle it I’ll just bring her right back, okay? You can try and get some sleep. You need some. You can’t live like this. And I’m doing pretty good right now.”


Veronica looked at Marlene, tucked safely and not crying in Logan’s arms.


Slowly, she agreed. “Okay. Two hours. Bring her right back.”


Logan smiled.


The moment he left, Veronica collapsed on her bed and was asleep within seconds. When she awoke, it was a little after four in the afternoon. She groggily sat up, trying to remember what was going on and where she was, before suddenly alarm shot through her. She had been asleep for eight hours.


She ran from her bedroom only to stop short. The kitchen was sparkling clean; the laundry was running. All the toys were picked up; everything from the broken shelf was stacked neatly in the corner. And a woman who Veronica was nearly positive was Mrs. Navarro, Weevil’s once ailing grandmother, was vacuuming Veronica’s living room.


Veronica stared.


What the hell was going on?


“Morning, sunshine!” Logan greeted.


Veronica stared at him. “What . . . what’s going on?”


“Not much,” Logan answered cheerfully. A rather contended Marlene was on his hip. It looked as if she had been given a bath, and she was dressed in fresh clothing. The vacuum cleaner didn’t seem to bother her. “Feeling better after your nap?” Veronica continued to stare at him.


“Logan!” she finally exclaimed.


“What?” he asked.


“What?” she repeated outraged. “Why is my house clean? Why is Mrs. Navarro here? Why are you still here? What’s going on?!”


“Um, I thought this was rather evident but since you asked: your house is clean because Mrs. Navarro cleaned it. And she cleaned it because I’m paying her to clean it since she needs the money and you need it to be cleaned. Plus, she really likes me now since I paid for her to get care at a private hospital and she’s all better.”


“You . . . you. . . .” Veronica wasn’t sure what to start with. “You paid for Mrs. Navarro to get better at a private hospital?”


“She really wasn’t that sick, actually,” Logan told her conversationally. “She just couldn’t afford the right care because she didn’t have any health insurance. She called me to ask if I could recommend her for a job at a hotel since they gave health insurance and she really needed it, and I started doing a little research and found out she was sick but she couldn’t afford to stop working and, well, I took it from there.”


“But . . . why?” Veronica asked.


“‘Cause she was always nice to me,” Logan answered simply. “And so I could hold it over Weevil.” He grinned.


Veronica didn’t say anything for a moment. “And now . . . now she’s cleaning my house?”


“I’m paying her, don’t worry,” he replied.


It took Veronica a moment to process it all before, “I don’t you need you to pay people to clean my house!” she yelled.


“I wouldn’t yell if I were you; it’ll probably upset Marlie. Right, kid?” he asked the little baby in his arms, who only looked up at him with big blue eyes.


“Marlie?” Veronica repeated.


“I think it’s cute.”


Again, Veronica could only stare.


Logan took a step closer to her. “I know things between us aren’t too great right now, Veronica, and I don’t know if they ever will be again. But I want to help you. You’re trying to . . . you’re trying to take care of this baby and make up for the fact that her mom abandoned her and . . . I wish there had been someone around to take care of me when my mom abandoned me. So I want to help.


“Mrs. Navarro has just gotten out of the hospital and she needs a job. I’m paying her to do cleaning for you twice a week . . . if that’s okay. It helps you and it helps her.” He paused. “Let me do this for you.”


“I don’t think so, Logan,” Veronica answered slowly.



He seemed to evaluate his next move. “Give me one good reason why not.”


She glanced around the clean room. Mrs. Navarro caught her eye and gave a cheery wave, oblivious to their conversation as the vacuum was too loud. It really was weird that Marlene wasn’t bothered by that. Marlene. If Veronica and Keith had a little help then maybe they really could keep her. . . .


Veronica couldn’t imagine keeping her. She was twenty years old, for God’s sake! Who did she look like — Lorelei Gilmore? But she wouldn’t actually be raising her . . . but could her dad? He didn’t have the time!


At the same time, though, she couldn’t really imagine just giving Marlene away. It would seem so wrong. She was her sister. And besides, she’d been with them for five weeks and Veronica was starting to get a little attached. . . .


“Please, Veronica. You’d just be giving a job to a poor cleaning lady. How can you say no to that? Where’s your heart?”


She glared at him for that.


“You still haven’t given me a reason,” he told her. She sighed.


It might be wrong, but . . . “Just cleaning? No babysitting or cooking or anything else?”


“Maybe a little shoe-shining.”


She glared at him. “Just cleaning,” he said, nodding obediently. “Scouts honor.” He raised his free hand with a solemn expression.


It took a minute, but at long last, she said tiredly, “Fine.”


That was when everything changed.
 

---

“Ms. Echolls?”


Marlie looked up from the writing assignment Mr. Jackson, her English teacher, had just given the class. One of the office-aides was standing in the doorway. “You’re getting picked up for early dismissal, Marlie,” said Mr. Jackson.


“By who?” Marlie frowned. She thought suddenly of her mother sitting in the office waiting for her and her stomach churned uncomfortably. She did not need to deal with Veronica right then.


Mr. Jackson looked at the office-aide who only shrugged. He disappeared back into the hallway, probably to deliver another message, but Mr. Jackson was still staring at her. “Well?” he asked. Marlie sighed, gathering up her books and shoving them into her backpack. “Your paper’s due on Friday!” he reminded her as she left.


To her relief, it wasn’t Veronica waiting for her. It was Uncle Wallace. She smiled.


“You got me out of sixth period and now I don’t even have to go to seventh,” she said. “You’re a lifesaver.”


He grinned. “You know it. Come on. Let’s get some food. I’m starving. Penny’s on some new diet,” he said as they left the school and started crossing the parking lot, “and all we eat at the house any more is fish and green beans. A man has to eat some real meat!” Marlie laughed softly.


“Is that really why you picked me up?” she asked.


He shrugged. “That,” he said, “and to talk to you about . . . everything. But you knew that the moment you saw me.” He looked at her from the side as they walked. She nodded. It wouldn’t be so bad, really. He wouldn’t force any conversation on her, and it’d probably be nice to talk to him.


It had been three days since she’d spent the night at Lianne’s house, and although she had returned home the next day and was staying there once more, Veronica hadn’t said a single word to her. The woman wouldn’t even look at her. Things with her dad weren’t too swell either. Not to mention the fact that Keith and Alicia had come to dinner last night and it had been beyond awkward. . . .


She climbed into Uncle Wallace’s car. It would be nice to talk to him; to have somebody to talk to. He smiled at her as he pulled the car out of the parking lot and she smiled back. She wondered what he thought of everything that was happening.


It was silent for a few minutes as they drove. “Are you mad at me?” she asked suddenly.


He glanced at her. “Why would I be?” he asked, his eyes returning to the road.


“For wanting to get to know Lianne,” she answered honestly. “For meeting up with her and then spending the night at her house. My mom won’t talk to me at all anymore.”


“If you want to get to know Lianne, that’s your thing,” he told her. “Nobody gets to decide if that happens but you.” Marlie smiled. “But your mom . . . well, she loves you, so don’t think on it too much. Just remember that she loves you.”


“If she loved me,” Marlie replied bitterly, “she wouldn’t hate me for trying to get to know Lianne.”


Uncle Wallace took his time responding. “Have you noticed that you still call Veronica your mom and Lianne by her name?”


“Old habits die hard,” she answered simply.


He glanced at her again. “Your mom loves you, Marlie. She does. But it’s always been hard for her, accepting people into her life who have hurt her once. Lianne is one of those people. She’s been burned too many times to want to risk getting burned again.”


Marlie rolled her eyes. “I know, I know,” she said, “my mom had such a horrible past and she’s so scarred because of it and blah, blah, blah. I’ve heard it all before, Uncle Wallace.”


“You’ve heard that, yeah, but nobody’s ever actually told you what happened in that past. Not the really bad stuff.” Marlie frowned, staring at him, waiting for more.


“This is the part where you tell me,” she said.


He chuckled. “It’s not my place. I’m just saying that you don’t know everything about your mom. And her mom, Lianne, she represents a part of Veronica’s life that wasn’t so good. That was the opposite of good. And it’s hard for Veronica to deal with. She’s not a superwoman or anything.”


“I know,” Marlie murmured.


“So cut her some slack, okay?”


“Okay,” she agreed. It was quiet for a few minutes.


“She asked me to move in with her.” Marlie wasn’t sure if she had intended to say it or it had just slipped out, but it didn’t really matter. Either way she’d said it. The words were out in the air, there for Uncle Wallace to soak up.


“Lianne?” Marlie only nodded. “Damn,” Uncle Wallace murmured, “you sure know how to bury the lead, girl.” Marlie smiled slightly at that response.


“Sorry,” she said.


“Don’t worry about it,” he assured. It was silent for a little while again, but this time he was the one finally to break it. “Are you going to?” he asked. “Move in with her, I mean.”


“Veronica would never let me,” Marlie told him, pressing her forehead to the glass of the passenger side window.


“She’d let you,” Uncle Wallace said. “Just the way she let’s you run off and stay with me and Mac and Lianne. She’d never try and control you.”


“She grounded me,” Marlie said, not wanting to think anything good of her mom.


“Has she tried to enforce it?” he asked. She didn’t reply. “She’s not the villain, Marlie.”


“I want her to be,” Marlie replied, realizing she sounded rather immature.


“You know, my mom’s real name isn’t Alicia.” Marlie frowned, looking over at her uncle Wallace with a furrowed brow.


“What?”


“She changed her name when she ran away from my father when I was just a baby.” Marlie didn’t know what to say. How come she had never heard this before? She was beginning to think she knew nothing about the past of anyone in her life. “She went on to marry the man I was always told was my father, the man who I got my last name from, the man who really is the father of your uncle Darryl.”


“Wow,” Marlie said softly, realizing what he was trying to say. “So you . . . you. . . .”


“Found out my senior year of high school that the man I’d always been told my father really wasn’t, that my mom had been lying to me for my entire life and that she had kept my father from me even though he wanted to get to know me? Yeah.”


“I didn’t know,” Marlie said, reeling.


“It’s not really something I start conversations with,” he replied, giving a small smile.


“So what happened when you found out?” she asked. “How did you find out?”


“Nathan — that was his name, my real dad — came. Found us. Told me the truth and forced my mom to tell the whole story.”


“What did you do?” she pressed as he turned the car into the parking lot of his favorite restaurant.


“I didn’t know what to do. When I asked you mom, she told me to side with my mom. She said that the hero was the one who stays and the villain is the one that leaves. It was always simple for her. But it wasn’t so simple for me and . . . it was tough.” He turned the car off.


“It isn’t ever simple. Mom just likes to think it is.”


“Sometimes, Marlie, painting everything black and white is the way to deal. You can’t hold it against your mom that she found a way to deal with it all.” He was quiet for a moment. "Lianne didn't just abandon you when you were a baby, Marlie," he said softly. "She abandoned your mom, too."


Marlie didn't know what to say.


He climbed out of the car and she followed suit, and neither of them spoke as they entered the restaurant and seated themselves.


They talked about regular things for a little while. She told him how much she hated her math class; he told her a story about the new cat Aunt Penny had just brought home. She described a food fight that had gone on in the cafeteria; he explained the process he’d gone through to buy a new lawn mower. They both discussed TV with fervor.


And then, as she was finishing up her waffles and ice cream, the topic came up again.


“So what are you going to do about Lianne’s offer?” he asked her.


“To live with her?” He nodded. “I . . . don’t know. Things are so bad with my parents right now that I’m thinking about taking it.” She paused. “Plus . . . I like her, you know? And I think it might be kind of nice to get a chance to know her . . . really. But what if I regret it? She did abandon me once, so. . . .”


“People make mistakes. They do things they regret. Sometimes you just have to forgive ‘em for it. You can’t live hating everybody.”


“My mom does,” Marlie countered.


“Veronica’s forgiven her fair share of people, even if it wouldn’t seem like it.”


“So what are you saying?”


“I’m saying that if you want to get to know Lianne, it’s not a crime. I’m saying that I went and lived with Nathan. And while I came home eventually, I was glad that I did it. I still am today.” It took Marlie a minute to process what he was really saying.


He was saying she should go live with Lianne.


“Just know,” he told her, “that no matter what happens, Veronica is your mom. You're sixteen years old. Your mom was sixteen years old, too, the first time Lianne left her.”


Now she was just confused.

---

 
A/N: Once again this is a shorter chapter, but I think it works. I know everyone has mixed opinions on Marlie (most leaning towards the dislike category) but she has some hits coming, so be nice! Hopefully I'll be able to get the next chapter posted tomorrow, but I may not have the chance, so hang tight. : )