Chapter Text
Veronica stared in awe as McNamara successfully wrapped her arms around the ghost of her best friend, burying her face on the strawberry blonde's neck. "You still smell like candy!" Mac giggled.
Heather snorted, "Of course that's what you'd be worried about, if I still smell like candy"
McNamara quickly pulled back as if she'd been burned, eyes welling up again, "I'm so sorry, Heather!"
"Whoa, calm down," The ghost frowned, "What's your damage?"
"I..." The blonde hiccupped, shaking slightly, "I was so stupid! I fell for how happy you looked with being popular, I didn't see you were in pain," she cried out, "I should've seen it! I should've seen you were in trouble... I failed you, Heather. I'm so sorry!"
Heather blinked, taken aback by the girls words and tears, "Heather... It wasn't your fault, you didn't 'fail' me"
"Yes, it was! That's what friends do: they notice things!" McNamara insisted, hugging Chandler as tightly as she could, "They're there for each other. They see what parents and all the other people don't... You've always had my back and I didn't have yours."
Heather could feel tears start to roll down her own face, "It... It wasn't your fault. I... I never wanted you or anyone else to see how I really felt..." she whispered, trying her best to keep her composure, but she knew Veronica could hear every word and the quivering in her voice in that small bathroom, "I was sad. I was sad all the time and the sadness was so heavy that I didn't think I could get away from it... Not ever. Like my life was a bad dream I couldn't wake up from."
"But you could have!" Mac cried harder, "If... If Veronica and I knew about it, we could've done something! We could've helped you!"
"There... There were days that I thought maybe things could be ok." Heather spoke, voice gentle in a way Veronica had never heard before, "We'd all be hanging out somewhere and everything would just... Fit. And I would think 'it will be okay. Maybe it can just be like this from now on'... But something would always happen and I would always suffocate again."
"I thought about you every day since you died. And Kurt, and Ram." The yellow dressed blonde sniffed, "I kept going through every moment, every thing you all said to me, every sign I missed."
Veronica could feel tears trailing down her cheeks. God, what had she done? To them, to Mac?
"I'm sorry I left without properly telling you..." Chandler rubbed the blonde's back gently, "Without trying. But I wasn't ready. I wanted it so much, but I wasn't ready to tell you."
"Are you ready now?" McNamara asked, voice meek.
"Some other time," Heather smiled softly, "We can't stay in this bathroom much longer, someone is bound to walk in and it's not gonna look great if you and Ronnie are crying and talking to the walls."
Mac nodded, wiping her tears, "Then... We should go somewhere else."
"We can go to my house," Veronica spoke up, not daring to look Chandler in the eye, "There's no one there at this hour."
The strawberry blonde gave her a small approving nod before whispering to Mac, "Let's go, Heather."
The ride to the Sawyer's house was quiet. As Veronica drove, McNamara and Chandler sat at the back, holding each other in silence. The brunette had never seen either of them look so intimate with each other.
She reminded herself that there was a lot she didn't know about the Heathers. She didn't know how much the 'suicides' had affected McNamara, she didn't know how power hungry Duke really had been...
She didn't know Chandler's feelings.
The guilt grew more and more with each second.
What else she didn't know?
-
It felt surreal. Watching Chandler and Mac in her room, whispering words of comfort to one another. She felt like she was the ghost. Like she was the one who shouldn't be there.
"So," Chandler spoke up, finally turning her attention to Veronica, "Apparently I can possess your body if I want to... That might be useful."
"You're not doing that again." Veronica frowned.
"You can do it with me, I don't mind," McNamara offered, shrugging as if she was offering Heather a jacket and not her body.
"I don't really know how it works," Heather revealed, "With Ronnie I just... Touched her and that was that."
"Maybe you have to want to possess someone?" Veronica asked, "You were pretty intent on doing something to help Heather, maybe that was the trigger."
Chandler nodded, stepping away from the blonde a bit, "I'll try, ok?"
Mac nodded in consent, preparing herself, "Ok."
The spirit reached out, determined as she tried to grab McNamara in the same way she had done with Veronica. But her hand went directly through the blonde, who shivered with the action.
"The hell?" Chandler scowled, trying again and again with no effort, "Now I can't even touch you anymore?"
As she gave it one more try, her hand finally made contact with her friend's shoulder, but she was still unable to enter her body, "Ok, this time I was thinking that I wanted you to touch me, maybe I need to want you to possess me?" Mac suggested.
"Trust me, I didn't want her to possess me at all and it still happened." Veronica shivered.
Mac scrunched her eyebrows together, "Maybe you can only possess Ronnie for some reason?"
Heather turned around to face the sick-looking brunette, "Well, it would make sense, wouldn't it, Ronnie?" she asked, the 'since you killed me' went unspoken, but Veronica got it anyway.
"... Maybe."
McNamara hummed, seemingly deep in thought, "I think I read about this once."
Veronica snorted, "You read about ghost possession?"
"You're not talking about-" Chandler scowled, "No."
"Heather..."
"No. First of all, that was just a stupid book. And second of all, we're not talking to that bitch again until she apologizes to you on her goddamn knees." The strawberry blonde growled, crossing her arms. Drano had started to drip from her mouth once more.
"Duke?" Veronica raised an eyebrow.
"On Heather's house library there's a collection of weird occult books that are very old. We read them once during a Halloween slumber party, they were pretty scary," Mac explained, "I remember there being one about ghosts."
"We don't even know they're reliable at all." Heather huffed, "They're just stupid ghost stories."
"Says the ghost! I mean... It's better than nothing," Veronica reasoned, "Do you really want to be trapped in here in ghost form forever and having to figure everything out by chance?"
The spirit flinched, "... No."
"Then we talk to Heather," McNamara beamed, as if she'd already forgotten how her 'friend' had treated her.
"We're not talking to Heather." Chandler stated, spitting out the girls name with venom. "The only option I'm willing to accept is us stealing that book."
"Again, says the ghost," Veronica frowned, "If Mac or I are caught we'd be in trouble!"
"Do you think you can pick up stuff?" The yellow dressed Heather inquired.
"Only one way of knowing," Heather smirked, and both Veronica and Mac watched as she disappeared.
"Heather?!" McNamara panicked, "Where did she go?"
"She does that sometimes, she always comes back." Veronica assured the blonde.
"... Have you been seeing her since she died?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Veronica nodded, "At first I thought I was going crazy... Until you saw her, actually."
"It's... "
"Weird?"
"Good, actually," Mac smiled, "Seeing her again, talking to her... For the first time since she died I feel like things are halfway normal again."
"She's still dead to everyone else." Veronica looked away guiltily, "... I didn't know you had taken her death that badly."
"She's my best friend," Mac spoke, confused with Veronica's words, "Heather has always been there for me one way or another and I wasn't there for her. Of course I took it badly, didn't you?"
"We couldn't have known."
"We should have."
Veronica stared at the blonde, heart broken, "I just... Thought you weren't that close considering how she would sometimes treat you and Duke."
"Heather isn't always like that," McNamara shook her head, "She can be gentle and soft and supportive. You have to really look for it, but it's there, her kindness. You've seen it before, I know you have."
She had. As much as she had tried to forget them, there were moments Heather had been a good friend to her, to Mac, even to Duke. But it was a lot easier reminding herself of the bad things, of all the mistakes, things that justified JD killing her.
Not that there was really any justification.
Heather was 17 like the rest of them, she was immature like the rest of them, she made mistakes like the rest of them. Before JD, how many people had Veronica helped to bully? Even if she was just following Heather's directions, her hands were just as dirty.
Heather hadn't been a demon nor a saint, she was just a 17 year old girl. And now, because of Veronica, she would forever remain one.
The thought made Veronica feel as if she had taken a sip of drain cleaner herself.
They were all damaged, what gave her and JD the right to chose who lived or died?