zaftig_goddess | Fanfic: Post Partum 11/?, R, LoVe

Veronica Mars Fic: Post Partum
A Veronica Mars FanFic
Title: Post Partum, Part 11/?
Author: Zaftig_darling
Pairing/Character: Logan/Veronica, Mac/Weevil, Piz/Parker
Word Count: 1420
Rating: R (this part) for language and adult concepts and minor character death
Summary: motherhood changes Veronica
Spoilers: All three seasons
Warnings: minor character death

Parts 1 to 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

Nine months earlier

Mac called Veronica's phone again as Logan checked out of his (hiding place) hotel suite and arranged with the Ritz-Carlton's concierge to have Veronica's car returned to their home by two valets. Veronica, still uncomfortable spending large sums of money frivolously, avoided thinking about the cost by staring at the floor, examining the Italian marble tiles. She didn't notice the phone vibrating in the bottom of her bag.

Ten minutes later, as she sat in the passenger seat of Logan's Ferrari, winding down the coast towards home, her phone rang again.

This time Veronica picked up.

"Hey Mac!" she said, brightly, trying to sound significantly more cheerful than she felt. "What's up?"

Mac didn't say anything at first, and then Veronica heard her draw a shaky breath. "Veronica?" Mac choked out. She was clearly crying.

"Mac, what's wrong?" Veronica asked, concerned. It was very un-Mac-like to call her in distress. "Are you okay?" Veronica paused as she watched a motorcycle change lanes on the highway in front of them, and another thought occurred to her. "Is Weevil okay?"

"I'm...it's not me. I'm fine. Weevil's fine. It's..." Mac's voice broke and Veronica heard her trying to get herself together. "Oh God, Veronica. It's Parker. She's...she's dying."

******************************

To everyone's surprise, Mac and Parker had remained close friends and even roommates, despite Parker and Logan's break-up, despite Veronica and Logan's reconciliation, and despite the fact that they had almost nothing in common. Mac and Parker continued to room together in one of Hearst's dormitories, and later in an apartment adjacent to campus, until their graduation.

Veronica had managed to graduate from Hearst in only three years, thanks to a heavy schedule and numerous summer courses. While she had continued to live with her father for her three years of Hearst, she had moved in with Mac and Parker during her first year at Thomas Jefferson School of Law.

Veronica would never have guessed that the girl whose rape she felt partly responsible for, the girl who she had resented as a rival for Logan's affection - the charming, perky Parker - would become one of Mac's best friends, and one of her own close friends as well.

It had helped that, at the beginning of sophomore year, both of them licking their Veronica-and-Logan induced wounds, Parker and Piz had chosen to drown their sorrows in each other. What began as a rebound fling for both of them became something real, and it was quickly apparent that they were made for each other.

The fact that Piz and Parker had found something precious together made it easier for them to reintroduce themselves into Veronica's life, and Parker had become one of Veronica's few close female friends. Ten days after Mac and Parker's Hearst graduation, Veronica had flown to Denver to watch Parker Lee and Stosh Piznarski get married, with Mac standing up for them as maid of honor, and Wallace standing up as one of the groomsmen.

****************************

Veronica was startled; certain she must have misheard her friend. "Parker's what?" she asked.

"Parker's dying, Veronica," Mac said, flatly.

"How? Why? What are you talking about?" Veronica said, surprised at how calm she sounded.

"Did you know she was pregnant? She and Piz were having a baby?" Mac asked.

"I think their Christmas card mentioned it a few months ago," Veronica said.

"She was about 37 weeks along, almost full term, and she started..." Mac stopped and took a deep breath. "She started bleeding, just a ton of blood, and Piz took her the ER and they did an emergency c-section."

"Oh," Veronica whispered, her left hand curling instinctively over her own still flat abdomen. "What happened?"

"They did the c-section, and afterwards she held the baby for just a minute. She told Piz she was afraid to hold her, afraid she might drop her, she felt so weak. They tried to stop the bleeding, but they couldn't," Mac paused again and Veronica reached out and put her hand on top of Logan's hand, resting on the gear shift.

"But what..." Veronica started to ask, and Mac continued.

"Twelve hours after the c-section they had to do an emergency hysterectomy, they just couldn't stop the bleeding. But she never woke up from the surgery."

"Oh my God," Veronica said. "When did this happen?"

"Three days ago, I guess," said Mac. "I just got off the phone with Piz before I called you the first time. He said he hadn't told any of her friends because he thought she was going to get better, he thought it would be easier to tell people after the crisis had passed, but a few hours ago, they told him her kidneys and liver and lungs were failing and that she wouldn't make it to tomorrow. She's dying Veronica. She's on a ventilator but they've given Piz the option to have it removed when he's ready to let her go. The doctors say there's no hope."

Veronica felt a wave of nausea hit her like a wall of bricks. "Logan," she commanded. "Pull over."

Veronica threw up into a ditch along the side of the highway. She found herself thinking, pointlessly, that there had been entirely too much vomiting in the last two hours.

Logan, who had not been privy to Mac's side of the conversation, held back his wife's hair and wondered, "Morning sickness? Well, Late Afternoon Sickness?"

Veronica stared at him for a moment, wiping her mouth with the back of her hands “No," she muttered. Then she realized that Mac was still on the phone and had probably been subjected to the sound of her retching. "Mac?" she asked. "Mac, are you still there? I'm sorry; it's just such awful news. I didn't handle it well."

"I'm trying to get on a flight to Portland this evening," Mac said. "Do you think you can come with me? I don't think I can handle this alone."

"Let me call you back in a minute, Mac." Veronica said.

Hanging up the phone, she broke the news to Logan. She was not at all sure how he would react to the news of his ex-girlfriend's imminent demise.

"Where is she?" Logan asked, stone faced.

"She's in Portland, she and Piz had been living there for about a year. He got a job as the morning DJ on one of the stations up there, and Parker was working on a Domestic Violence Prevention Task Force."

"This is insane," Logan said. "She's fucking twenty-five years old. Healthy twenty-five year old women do not drop dead from having babies! That's not supposed to fucking happen! That's just...that's just insane."

"I know," Veronica said, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Screw you and Mac getting on a flight this evening. We'll get you guys a private plane. I'll have you there in two hours. Call her back and tell her to meet us at Palomar," he said, indicating the small private airport in Carlsbad, just north of San Diego.

Veronica sucked in her breath at the idea of such an expense but nodded her head and called Mac. If there was ever a time to take advantage of Logan's money, she supposed, now was as good a time as she could imagine.

********************************

Three hours later, Veronica, Logan and Mac joined Piz, Parker's parents, and Piz's mother around a hospital bed in Portland. Weevil paced in the hallway, not comfortable with intruding on the family's private moment.

In the hospital bed, attached to what seemed like a thousand tubes, Parker Lee Piznarski lay, her small body bloated and yellowing, her hair limp, her eyes closed. Logan reached out and touched the fingers of her left hand. He reflected that, all things considered, this girl had once been important to him. He had once taken comfort in her embrace, and had laughed with her and had kissed her pretty face. He could not bring himself to look her husband in the eye, to confront the reality of what he was losing.

Piz, in a state of shock, signed a document on a clip board and a doctor removed the ventilator from Parker's ravaged body.

"I need to ask everyone but her husband and her parents to leave now," the doctor said. "There should never have been this many people in here, but, sometimes we make an exception when...well, sometimes we make an exception."

Tears swam down Mac's face and she choked back a sob as she reached out and squeezed Parker's hand one last time, and they left the room.

In the hallway Weevil wrapped his arms around Mac, stroking his fiancée’s back as she let loose a storm of grief, and Logan ushered all of them into a small room marked, "family consultation" where they could cry without disturbing the other patients.

Mac and Veronica were sitting on an uncomfortable couch, leaning against one another, when Piz entered the room. "She's gone," he said, dully. Then he turned and left.

**************************************

Three days later, Veronica stood in the parlor of a funeral home, shifting uncomfortably in a pair of black pumps, purchased hastily the day before, along with a plain black suit. She was transfixed by the sight of Parker's mother, who walked through the room in a daze, holding her granddaughter to her chest.

The baby was in a tiny pink dress, and her grandmother whispered in her ear as they approached an array of photographs of Parker.

"Do you see, darling?" Mrs. Lee said. "See how beautiful your mommy was, she was a pretty girl she was?" Her voice cracked and tears slid soundlessly down her normally composed face.

*******************************

The last few days had been a blur. Logan had sent the plane back to San Diego to get Wallace and three of Parker's sorority sisters who were still living in the area. Weevil had gone back home, as he could not afford to let his garage close for three days, his mechanical services were in high demand among Neptune's elite.

Piz appeared to be in shock. He had not looked at his daughter, had not held her a single time. He had not discussed Parker's death, or what it meant for his, and his daughter's, future. When he spoke of Parker, it was in the present tense. "My wife likes green," he had stated to the funeral director.

His eyes were glassy and he fidgeted constantly. If Veronica hadn't know better, she would have thought he was high, but Wallace, who had been with him almost constantly since his arrival, insisted that he was not.

Piz moved as if he was on auto-pilot. If food was placed in front of him, he put it in his mouth. If a coffee cup was handed to him, he drank from it, but it would grow cold in his hand as he forgot about it.

Wallace told Veronica that, as they were leaving the hospital, one of the nurses informed him he could not leave until he had signed the birth certificate, until the child had been given a name.

"Parker wanted to name her Sophia," Mrs. Piznarski had gently reminded him. Piz had picked up the forms and the clipboard the nurse was holding out to him, and had carefully written something, signed quickly, and abruptly left the room. Parker's mother had taken the form from the nurse, and had looked at it in confusion.

"He's named her Nenia," she'd said, confused. "Nenia Hope Piznarski?"

Parker's father, who had been cradling the baby against his chest, had looked up at his wife, shocked. "Nenia?" he'd asked. "N-e-n-i-a?" he clarified.

"Yes," Mrs. Lee had said, confused. "Why not Sophia?"

"Because," explained Mr. Lee, sadly, who taught Latin and History at a high school in Denver, "Nenia is the goddess of mourning."

******************************************
As the wake and visitation came to a close, Logan leaned against the wall, watching Piz carefully.

Logan had been uncharacteristically close-mouthed and thoughtful for the past three days, not saying much. His grief for the bright, beautiful girl who had helped him out of his deep-blue-Veronica-funk not so many years ago was quiet and subtle. He was sad, and at the same time embarrassed that part of him was grateful that it was not his wife who had died. But mostly, he was terrified that the same thing could, conceivably, happen to Veronica.

It was approaching 9:00 PM, and while the funeral parlor had been packed for most of the evening, almost all of the mourners had left. Mr. and Mrs. Lee were in a corner, feeding Nenia (who they had taken to calling her middle name “Hope”) a bottle.

Piz stood in front of the square box that housed the ashes of his wife. The box had a photograph on each of it’s sides, one of Parker as toddler, one of her as a teenager, one of her on her wedding day, and one from only a few weeks ago, pregnant and glowing and happy.

Piz picked up the urn in his arms and stared at the photo of his wedding day. Suddenly, he dropped to his hands and knees on the floor, his body covering the urn and what remained of his wife.

A low, keening sound came from deep in his chest and Wallace ran over to him and tried to pick him up off the floor. Piz pushed him away.

“Parker!” Piz had cried. “Paaaaaaaaaaarker!” he screamed into the floor.

His parents and siblings soon surrounded him, as he began to cry, to sob. “Oh God, oh my God, Parker! Why? Why?”

His father was able to pull him up off the floor as he continued to plead with God or Fate or the Universe to bring back his Parker.

It was heartbreaking. Veronica began to cry watching him, and soon she and Mac were sobbing as well. Logan walked over to Veronica and took her hand. “He needs to do this,” he said quietly. “He needs to grieve. He’s been in denial for days. It’s important that he realize she’s really gone, she's not coming back. He needs to see that. It's hell on earth, but he needs to see it.”

*****************************************

Later that night, in their room at Portland's Paramount Hotel, Veronica and Logan lay in bed, facing away from each other, not speaking, lost in their own thoughts. There were still many things left unsaid between them, things that had been pushed to their backs of their minds in the three days since Parker's death.

Logan, however, knew what he needed to say - he had known it since witnessing Piz's breakdown at the funeral home. He rolled over and slid his arm over Veronica, and rested his large palm over her stomach.

"Veronica," he asked, "are you asleep?"

"No, not yet," she answered. She started to roll over to face him, but found herself trapped beneath him as he positioned himself on top of her. She wanted to tell him she wasn't in the mood, she wanted to tell him she was still upset about his accusation that her pregnancy was the result of her unfaithfulness, but instead of kissing her, Logan touched his nose to hers and said, "I need to tell you something." His voice was very serious, not his voice of seduction.

"Yes?" she said, as she realized his cheeks were wet with tears.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I thought...I'm so sorry I accused you of cheating...I want you to know..." Logan paused.

"What?" she asked gently.

"I want you to know, I want you to know how much I love you, how much you mean to me, I know you didn't...I know you wouldn't cheat, Veronica. I know you wouldn't. But seeing Piz today, seeing him when he finally realized Parker was gone...Veronica, I wouldn't even care, I wouldn't even care if this baby WAS someone else's, I wouldn't care, because I love you so much...please just...please don't die. When this baby comes, please don't die, okay? Because I don't think I could do this on my own."

He slid down her body until his face was resting against her abdomen, where he kissed her through the fabric of her pajamas. "I will love this baby, Veronica, I will love this baby so much, but don't leave me, don't leave me alone like Piz."

Veronica reached down and stroked her husband's hair. "I won't leave you, Logan. I won't," she whispered.

To be continued

A/N - Many of the concrete events of this chapter are not fiction. At the beginning of December, I lost one of my college girlfriends in the same way Parker was lost. She leaves behind a grieving husband and a beautiful baby girl, although the baby is NOT named for the Roman goddess of grief and mourning, she was given the name her mother chose for her before she died. I am sorry this is so sad, I needed to write about what happened to my friend, and this is what came out.

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Date: 2009-01-03 12:25 am (UTC)

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