bruises // heathers

twenty five // bang bang

Veronica paced around the house, grabbing the most useless items and stuffing them into her purse. "Darling, what are you doing?" JD asked, a confused look on his face.

"Packing." Veronica said, her voice short and bitter. She shook her head in an annoyed and disappointed fashion. "I thought you had changed, Jason."

"What's got you so upset?" JD asked, touching her shoulder gently. Veronica looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears of frustration. She smirked slightly, reaching into her purse and pulling out a revolver. "Where did you find that?" JD questioned, annoyed.

"In a shoe box under our bed, darling." Veronica hissed.

"Give it to me." JD ordered, holding out his hand. Veronica pulled the gun away from his expectant palm.

"Fuck you." Veronica spat.

"Veronica, it's solely for protection." JD lied. "It's just to keep you and Elle safe in case of an emergency."

"I found these really old bullets too. Are they ich lüge?" Veronica asked with a snippy tone.

"For fucks sake, Veronica. If you mention that one more time, I'll-" JD began, only to be interrupted by his wife.

"What? You'll shoot me? Kill me? Like you planned to do with this exact gun when we were seventeen?" Veronica spit out rapid-fire questions, finding herself only get angrier and angrier.

"I'm home!" Elle called from the front hallway, causing Veronica to suck in a breath and lose her grip on the gun. JD instantly bent down to pick up the revolver, shoving into the pocket of his trench coat as he straightened up. Elle walked into the room and noticed the anger in her father's brow, the tears in her mother's eyes. Her happy face fell to sadness as she asked, "Were you two fighting again?"

Veronica and JD had been fighting more and more since the family came back to Sherwood two months prior. Life had been normal at first, they were all happy to be home but then something changed. This anger came out of Veronica, attacking JD, who raged in retaliation. There was some source to the problems between them, but Elle couldn't figure it out and though she begged Heather to tell her what the problem was, the ghost would not.

"No, Ellie, we weren't." JD lied for the sake of his daughter's happy heart.

"Don't lie to her!" Veronica shouted in frustration, JD was always quick to sweep things under the rug with Giselle.

"Why are you two fighting so much?" Elle asked, folding her arms across her chest and looking up with expectancy in her blue eyes.

"Adults fight, Elle, it's normal." Veronica sighed, not wanting to lie to her little girl but having to in order to protect her.

"Don't lie to her!" JD mocked his wife's phrase from moments earlier.

"How about you tell her then?" Veronica offered sarcastically.

"Ellie, dear, you know that I'm a private investigator. Right?" JD began, kneeling to be on his daughter's level as their blue eyes met. Elle nodded. "Sometimes cases that the police didn't solve get brought to me, years later."

"I don't understand." Elle mumbled, confusion knitting her brows together.

"Shortly after we came back home, a young girl came to see me." JD began.

"So?" Elle asked.

"Her name was Katie Kelly." Veronica added.

"Why does that matter?" Elle asked angrily, whipping her head to look at her mother.