Okay, so I've been rewatching the end of Veronica Mars season one. And it's still so good. I also still love Wallace. And I love Veronica making him spirit boxes. And I don't exactly ship them--I wouldn't have wanted them to hook up in the show, but I wish their dynamic hadn't died so hard in the last season. And I like sometimes thinking about them hooking up and being awesome.

So I wrote a fic. As one does.

Title: BFF
Author: Chash
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Pairing: Wallace/Veronica
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Wallace isn't the one who leaves.
Spoilers: Through the whole show!


The thing is, Wallace sticks around.

For anyone else, that might not be a lot, it might not be anything. It's the natural order of people to not assume that everyone, at some point, will abandon them without a word. But she's Veronica Mars, and she's been hurt before.

She left first, when the FBI came along. She left Piz and Logan, the confusing tangle of nice boys who didn't get her and jackasses who knew more about her than anyone should have. She cut and ran. And Wallace was a casualty of the war that was her love life.

She cut and ran from the FBI too, when she realized that rules were not just suggestions and The X-Files was woefully inadequate in presenting a fair and balanced perspective on the government's feelings on extraterrestrial enthusiasts.

She doesn't call Logan when she needs a place to stay--she doesn't even call her dad. Now that he's The Man again, she isn't sure he'll approve her desire to go back into the seedy world of private investigation, and she wants to figure out how to tell him. Piz definitely won't approve--he's got this thing about always telling her to chase her dreams, and she spent so long convincing him this was her dream that he would take her dropping out as a sign she was giving up.

She was giving up, but in a good way.

She calls Wallace because Wallace is her BFF, in that way that means she'd wear a necklace with half a heart for him and trade pants with him if Wallace's pants weren't dirty boy pants that wouldn't fit her. Wallace hasn't let her down, not in the catastrophic ways that everyone else has. Wallace is trustworthy.

He's like her brother, except that's completely wrong, because they somehow start making out.

Here is how it happens: They are on the bed in his new single, their knees knocking together, watching a movie like they did in high school. His arm gets around her sometime, and she is willing to move her head onto his shoulder because it's more comfortable than the wall. And then they reposition more and more minutely until they kiss, suddenly, like the world just tilted and pushed them together.

Veronica doesn't exactly start dating guys most of the time. They end up kissing and then they assume that they should ask her out to dinner.

Wallace says: "Man, I'm glad our parents didn't work out."

Then he kisses her again.

Veronica has not spent her days pining for Wallace. It's already more cliche than she'd like it to be, although on the spectrum of "boys everyone knew I'd date someday," she can't figure out if best friend is better or worse than ex-boyfriend's best friend/ex-best-friend's boyfriend, or even best friend's roommate.

She should have stuck with Duncan. Possible half-brother with a child from a friend in a coma is just soap operatic.

Wallace doesn't say: "I've always been in love with you" or "I'm so glad this happened" or "I missed you." Which would make it worse.

Wallace says: "Cuz if they got hitched? This would just be weird."

And it's like that thing when you're at a fancy party and small talking, and someone says "This is awkward," and that fixes it, drains out all the awkwardness. Veronica laughs and fits her head into Wallace's neck, almost like they were hugging, which they never did much, because Veronica isn't touchy-feely. But she fits nicely--he doesn't tower over her like Duncan and Logan did, which is a new feeling for her. She's used to feeling small with boys. It gives them the wrong idea.

Veronica says: "Yes, god forbid this get weird."

Wallace says: "That tickles." But he doesn't move his neck away from her breath.

Veronica tells him: "This isn't why I came here."

Wallace laughs. "Yeah, I figured you were planning to seduce me. I mean Veronica Mars? Asking me for a favor? That never happens." A pause. "You know, if you did this in high school, I would have complained way less."

"Note to self: boys like kissing. If only I'd gained this wisdom sooner, who knows how my life would have been." She moves away so she can look properly thoughtful, and Wallace smirks. Wallace hasn't ever smirked at her like that before. If only he had sooner, who knows how her life would have been.

Wallace says: "We like other stuff too."

His hand is moving under the hem of her shirt, and Veronica thinks: I didn't think Wallace would be like this.

And that opens up a whole other world that traces back to this one thing: she has thought about this. She has considered what it would be like with Wallace in idle moments, in moments when she is not paying attention.

Piz asked her over the summer: "Did anything ever happen with you and Wallace?"

Veronica said: "No."

Piz laughed: "I can't believe When Harry Met Sally lied to me."

Veronica says: "I think you're Sally."

Wallace's hand stops. "No way."

Veronica says: "Which one of us is obsessed with death here? Who's got the dark soul?"

Wallace says: "Which one of us would fake an orgasm in a diner?"

A pause. "Trick question. Neither of us would do that."

Now Wallace's mouth is on her neck. "You so would."

She says: "You always did know me too well."

Wallace agrees: "I always did."

It isn't until the next day, after they've already slept together, fast enough that it makes her worry maybe she's easy now, that Wallace asks: "Why'd you come back?"

Veronica says: "I killed a guy."

Wallace says: "Seriously."

And Veronica tells him. "They weren't for me."

Wallace smiles. "I could have told you that."

Veronica tilts her head, a quiet acknowledgment of how she wasn't exactly there with him their freshman year. How she was there with his roommate, not really hanging out with him.

Not really being his FF.

Veronica says: "Yeah, you could have."

Wallace asks: "What about you and...?"

It says something about her that her best friend doesn't know who she was actually dating when she left.

She says: "History."

Wallace says: "And we're?"

She says: "Present tense. Always."

Wallace grins his basketball grin, the grin that shows her why he was a star, why all the girls wanted him, why everyone but her forgot that the first day, he was taped to a flagpole.

Of course, Wallace doesn't forget that either. He isn't that kind of guy. He's a good guy who gets her.

What a concept.

Wallace says: "So you're not just using me for sex. Cuz I wouldn't blame you if you were."

Veronica says: "Is that gonna hurt your man esteem?"

It seems like Wallace can't stop smiling. "You really don't know anything about man esteem."

She says: "See, that's cuz I'm a girl."

He asks: "Are you coming back to school?"

She says: "I'm coming back to Neptune. I hear you've got a new sheriff who needs a PI in his hair."

He whispers conspiratorially: "The new sheriff doesn't even have hair."

She says: "Piece of cake."

Wallace brushes her hair out of her face, and it's strange that it's him. "It's good to have you back."

He doesn't say: "I missed you."

She doesn't either.

After all, he's never left her.