Duncan loved Lilly. Veronica knows it better than anyone because she saw it more than anyone. They let their guard down with her - just a little - just enough to know the pet names, the hot buttons and the honest emotion that stood between them. Sometimes it was love - Duncan was embarrassed by Lilly's brazen openness, but supported his sister in everything she did, sometimes it was hate - Duncan would never admit it aloud to anyone but Veronica, and even then it had been whispered to the point where she wasn't even sure she was supposed to hear it, but he didn't like Logan dating Lilly, but it was always something more.

Right now Duncan looks lost and alone and hurting and his eyes are wide with fear and something Veronica can't understand, can't fathom. It aches inside her though and all she wants to do is touch him, comfort him, steal comfort from him. But even if he puts his arms around her, even if they're wrapped up in each other, there's a distance between them that Veronica doesn't understand, so she knows there's no way she can breach it.

Her father's doing his job, and she's sure the Kanes are doing theirs, and she wonders what their job is, because it's something not entirely like grief except when she looks at Duncan, when they look at him.

Her best friend is dead.

She feels rules shifting and bending to accommodate that fact and she's not sure how to stop it, not sure if she can. Her life changed the second Lilly's ended. Lilly's death doesn't fit into Veronica's world, and so Veronica's world doesn't exist any more.

And if that's the case, Veronica wonders what's going to happen to her.