September first, 1998

6

JD hadn't seen this coming. Veronica had looked so calm and serene that he almost thought they could pick up from where they left off. Well, maybe a few chapters before where they left off, considering the last time they saw each other, they had been trying to kill each other in the boiler room under the school gym over the bomb JD had set up to wipe out the school, just before he had faked his own suicide by pretending to blow him self up with said bomb. Thinking about it, Veronica punching him was the perfect way to pick up where they left off.

"Was that good for you? Cause it kind of sucked for me!" He stuttered, holding his nose which by this point was pouring with blood. He could see Jenna meters away screaming and crying, not understanding why her mom and just attacked the guy who brought home her missing daughter. Veronica didn't say anything, she just stood there breathing heavily, too angry to cry.

"MOM! Are you insane!" Jenna yelled, running over to get between the pair. JD stumbled back to lean on the car, recovering from the pain consuming his face. He kept his eye contact with Veronica, who was still remaining silent, just glaring at him.

"Veronica," he began, "we need to talk."

"I'll say" she scoffed, clenching her fists with rage.

"Look, we're scaring Jenna, let's just..."

"Don't you dare say her name, you don't deserve it!" She yelled, grabbing Jenna by her shoulder and moving in front of her.

"Okay, okay, let's just calm down. If you let me inside, I'll explain everything, please Veronica?" He looked pathetic, she thought. But annoyingly still attractive, despite the now crooked, bloodied nose.

"Does she know?" Veronica sounded scared now, not as powerful as she had been seconds prior.

"No, although now I think she's working out somethings up" he said sarcastically, glancing over at Jenna. Veronica rolled her eyes.

"Fine" she decided "you can come inside, but I haven't forgiven you. You look like hell"

"Gee a wonder why" he said, gesturing towards his newly broken nose, "come on Veronica, it's freezing out here".

Veronica reluctantly led JD into the house, pointing towards the kitchen and sending Jenna to go and get some towels.

A few seconds later she followed JD into the kitchen, watching him try to clean the blood of off his face at the sink. Jenna quickly reappeared with some fresh towels, allowing JD to properly wash his face. Some of the blood had stained his uniform, but he didn't seem to care. Veronica watched him from the kitchen table, unaware to JD. She was trying to work out why on earth he had become a police officer, given his history with the law. She didn't even have the mental energy to try and work out how the hell he was still alive, she just hoped he would tell her himself.

"Jenna, go to bed" she ordered. Considering she had ran away that evening, Jenna wasn't in a position to argue with her mom, so she did what she was told without question, as much as she wanted to work out who that guy was.

When he had finally cleaned himself up, JD turned around, and tentatively walked over to the kitchen table. He knew he had a lot of explaining to do, but he was still readjusting to the fact that he had been reunited with Veronica after all this time, albeit not the greatest reunion to be instantly punched in the face.

"Let's just start over, shall we?" He suggesting, breathing a sigh of relief as Veronica slowly nodded in agreement.

"Okay, let me explain, I'll start with how I survived shall I? Well, on that football field, I realised that you were willing to die for a world that had treated you like shit. I didn't get it at first, I couldn't understand why you wanted to save them. But you did. And that changed something in me. I don't know Veronica, but I thought if this world was good enough for you to sacrifice yourself for, surely it was good enough for me to simple exist in. It sounds stupid, I know. I made sure you were far enough away that to couldn't really see what was happening, so before the bomb went off. I threw it as I far as I could and ran. You couldn't see me because it went off in mid air and there was smoke everywhere, and at first I wanted to run straight to you, but then I realised that if I was gone, you would finally be free, so I let you believed I had died."

"But didn't you get hurt?" Veronica interrupted, suddenly felling a little guilty that he had gone into hiding for her sake, "I mean, you were so close to the bomb when it happened, surely you were hit."

JD didn't say anything. He just turned around and slowly pulled up the back of his shirt, revealing a map of scars that made Veronica sick to her stomach. She reached out cautiously and lightly put her hand on one of the scars, tracing its crooked shape across his spine. JD flinched at first, as he still struggled with any sort of physical affection, given the abuse his father had inflicted upon him as a child. What felt like eternity past before he turned back around to Veronica, reluctant to brake the peaceful silence.

"I'm sorry" he whispered. He truly meant it, he wished he had never moved to Sherwood Ohio in the first place, knowing that if he'd never met Veronica, her life would have been so much simpler. He just had to destroy everything he loved. It was like a curse.

"I thought I had rid myself from you. I thought that if I left you could carry on with your life and forget about me. I had no idea you were pregnant. I had no idea I had left you to look after our child all on your own. If I had known, things would have been different. I would have been different. At least I hope I would have been, sometimes I'm not sure who I really am."

At this point tears were starting to form in his eyes and he began to shake. As if on instinct, Veronica wrapped her arms around him and held him close, fighting back tears herself so she could look strong. Someone had to be.

"I didn't know then either" she began "but believe me, I don't regret it. When I found out I was pregnant, you were already gone. You couldn't have known. It was hard, my parents cut off contact with me so I spent months staying with others, Martha and Heather Mac mostly, while I saved for this place. People at school talked of course, they thought you were dead too. Some people at school laughed that I was carrying a dead guys kid, very few people were sympathetic. At first I was angry. And scared, very scared. But she's the best thing that's ever happened to me, and for that I thank you."