Title: Vigil

Fandom: Veronica Mars

Pairing: Weevil/Veronica

Rating: PG

Word Count: 775

Notes: For the 15minute ficlets word # 165

Weevil doesn’t hear the news right away, not until he arrives home and Grandma Letty meets him at the door, all worried eyes and furrowed brow, hands clenched in her apron. One look tells him something terrible has happened, and it only takes a few short words from her to have him muttering something that has her making the sign of the cross as she rebukes him half-heartedly in Spanish. An apology is thrown over his shoulder as he turns and heads for the door, and any other time he might expect further chastisement for running out on her, but not now.

This time, she understands he has somewhere important to be.

He tries the apartment first, but there are no lights on and no-one home – he picks the lock just to make sure. He has a list of places where she might be, and he tries them all, but comes up empty every time.

Night is falling when he pulls up at the last place on his list, Neptune High. The parking lot is deserted, and he shakes his head, looking up at the stars and asking himself, not for the first time, “If I were Veronica Mars, where would I be right now?”

The answer comes to him suddenly, and he’s shaking his head for an entirely different reason. It’s the last place he’d expect her to go, but it’s so wrong that it’s got to be right.

Ten minutes later, he pulls up outside a building that he’s familiar with, a building that once upon a time many people predicted he’d end up in sooner rather than later. Like the Mars apartment, there are no lights on at the county morgue, but unlike Neptune High, there is one car in the parking lot, a car with which he’s very familiar.

He parks alongside her, opening up the passenger door and getting in without knocking, without saying a word. Veronica doesn’t look at him, keeps her eye on one particular window, and her face is expressionless when she says, “Somehow, I thought it would be you.”

Weevil shrugs. “Figured someone needs to keep an eye on you, sitting here in this lump of tin. Seriously V, you gotta let me find you a better set of wheels. I can even do it all legal now.” He’s made that offer a million times, usually when he’s fixing the latest thing to go wrong in a long list of things that have gone wrong, but she always refuses.

That’s Veronica Mars, loyal as the day is long, even when she knows she could trade up to something better.

“It gets me where I need to go.”

Her voice, high and thin, distracts him from his train of thought, and when he sneaks a peek at her, he doesn’t like what he sees. “At least put on the heat then,” he says, doing just that, chancing a touch to the back of her hand as he does so. “Jeez, you’re freezing.”

“You’re not bringing me home.” It’s almost a Veronica-voice, that voice that says she’s not going to be dissuaded from her course of action. “I’m staying here tonight.”

He nods slowly. “That’s ok.”

“Lamb tried to bring me home… the taser in my hand is the only reason he let me stay here. I wanted to stay inside, but they had to lock up… security.” She shrugs, though he has the strange feeling she’s forgotten he’s here. “I wanted to stay with him…” There are tears welling up in her eyes as she turns to him. “I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him alone there…”

A tear makes its way down her cheek, and before he can think about it, question it, he’s reaching over to pull her into his arms. “It’s ok,” he says, holding her tightly, running a hand over her hair. “I’ll stay with you. I’ll do anything you need me to do.”

She pulls back slightly, so that she can look into his eyes, and in that moment, the truth of his words strikes him forcefully. “Will you hold me?” she chokes out, and he is lost.

Pulling her back towards him, he settles her head on his shoulder, presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Done,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around her so tightly that he’s surprised she’s able to breathe.

True to his word, he stays there all night with her, and in the morning, when the local paper carries a picture of her and her father on the front page, when every detail of the shooting is laid bare, he holds her some more.

Note: the word was “hold”.