obligatoryass | Back in Neptune

Back in Neptune

Logan's strangely tired as he steps through the door. It's not as if he didn't get enough sleep at Milliways - some days it seemed like he did nothing but sleep. But stepping from that place and into this one weighs on him, as if all his troubles have resumed their place on his shoulders, sapping all his energy.

He's in the Neptune Grand, which is a relief. He was more than half-afraid he'd end up back outside Veronica's apartment and still need to drive home. To a mental list of "Things to Do," he adds "pick up the XTerra." It goes right underneath item "Prepare for inevitable crushing rejection from Veronica."

First on that mental list, though, is, "Call Trina."

Logan stares at his cell phone for a very long time before picking it up and dialing her number.

If he's really lucky, she just won't answer, and he'll have fulfilled his fraternal obligations with a short voicemail message.

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Please. When is Logan ever really lucky?

"Hello?"

There's just the tiniest edge of frazzled to it, under the carefully weighed and conveyed grief.

Very, very rarely. And even then, it's usually underscored by something unlucky.

"Hi," Logan says uncomfortably. "Um. It's me. I just wanted to - you know. Hi."

He gets special points for incoherence today.

"Oh, it's you," she says, and she sounds surprised. She's stopped checking the caller id box on her cell phone. It rings too often right now for her to keep up.

"Hi."

"Yeah, it's me," he says, not caring that he repeats himself. "I um. Just wanted to see how, you know. How you're doing."

It's not exactly a question, but it's not a statement, either.

"Probably about as well as you think I am, given that you're bothering to call," she says. "Tired."

Pause.

"I left you a message. At the hotel. You get it?"

"No," Logan says. "I've been...out. Sorry."

He wants to ask if she needs anything, help or comfort or anything, but the words don't come, and the apology is half-hearted at best.

There's a shrug that Logan can't see but can probably hear.

"Doesn't matter," she says. "Just touching base or checking in or something. You okay?--oh, shit, other line. I'll be right back."

Trina puts her brother on hold.

Logan is simultaneously irritated, relieved and unsurprised. He holds, waiting to see if she'll remember to come back to him.

It takes a moment. Several moments in fact. But she does dcome back.

"Sorry, phone's been ringing off the hook. Agents, police, friends, everybody who ever worked with Dad on anything, funeral homes, florists. Hey, do you think we need to come up with a some charity to make donations to instead of sending flowers? It's sort of expected, isn't it?"

It's probably a sign of how tired Trina is that she's no longer bothering to try to keep how tired she is out of her voice.

"I guess," Logan says, but what the hell kind of charity would they donate to? The Home for Underage, Unsuccessful Starlets? Nymphomaniacs Anonymous? Somehow, he doubts this is what Trina is looking for.

"What about hurricane relief?" After all, no one ever blamed Aaron Echolls of causing a natural disaster. It seems safe enough. "Popular, and not yet glommed onto by a specific celebrity."

"Fine," she says. "Doesn't have a damn thing to do with Dad, but maybe that's for the best. I think he'd been to New Orleans once or twice.

"How are you?"

Logan doesn't mention that Lynn loved the city - that would elicit an immediate veto, and he's just not up for that. Who knows what Trina would pick in response?

"I'm - you know. You heard about the shit that went down here on graduation day?"

She might actually be too tired to have vetoed it today. And it's nice to have one decision made by someone else, honestly.

"You mean aside from the stuff with Dad? Only a little. I've been kinda tied up. But something about Dick's brother jumping or something, right?"

"Yeah," Logan says. He pauses. He doesn't want to spill, but he's done it once, and maybe Trina cares. Maybe.

Probably not, with all she's got on her plate at the moment, but maybe he wants her to.

"He killed all the kids on the bus. Blew up Woody Goodman's plane."

There's a long pause.

A very long pause.

Trina's call waiting beeps once, and then twice. For once, she ignores it.

"I . . . how the hell did he blow up a plane?"

Logan flails.

Silently, but he's still flailing. "With science?" he finally offers.

Because it's not just for blinding anymore!

"And what? A surface to air missle? I--oh God damn it, hold on," she says, clicking off to answer the other line again.

She's more or less been on the phone ever since that maid discovered Aaron.

"No idea," he says to the dead air. He couldn't even get an egg to survive a ten foot drop. How will he understand bombs and planes and cell phones?

"Uh, Trina?" he asks, wondering if she's back yet.

"You know," comes the reply, "at this point, I'm just going to stop answering the damn thing. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to know when the funeral is going to be? Sometime after the fucking police release the body."

It's easier to say "the body" than use a name, somehow.

"Yeah," he says. "Maybe just reset your voicemail message to say, soothingly, that arrangements will be announced or whatever."

Long pause. "So, um, you need me to do anything?"

Not that he wants to, but it seems like the thing to do.

"You're gonna get calls, from reporters and other vultures," she says. "Try not to say anything to them that's gonna make it worse, okay?"

Slight pause.

"You'll be at the funeral, right?"

"Sister dear, I promise that I will do my very best to avoid talking to them at all costs, and should said conversations occur, I'll give them my best nothing-speeches."

Another pause, slightly shorter this time. He's got no real choice in the matter - he's got to go, or Trina will never speak to him again. He'd rather not have that happen.

"Yeah."

"Good," she says, because she can't quite say thanks.

"Look, I hate to cut you off, but I have to go. I need to . . . there's some administrative stuff that has to be done by a family member."

Like identifying the body, as if every person in America over the age of ten couldn't identify Aaron Echolls, even with a bullet through his brain.

"Yeah," he says. "I get it. Just...if you need anything, you'll let me know, right?"

He's sure she won't, and he's not sure he wants her to, but the offer has to count for something, right?

It does, though less than it might if she didn't know he's quite certain she won't take him up on it.

"I'll do that," she says, and she's sure she won't, too.

A long pause.

"Thanks for calling. And for lunch, after graduation. We should do that again sometime."

"Yeah, we should," he says. Like after the funeral. Only not.

"And, yeah, you're welcome. Um. Take care."

"You, too. Stay out of trouble."

She's only half kidding. She absolutely cannot handle it if Logan gets himself, say, arrested this week.

Logan doesn't think he can handle it either.

"I intend to," he says.

Pause. "You too."

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