I do not own these characters- or anything pertaining to the show.

"Rory are you coming?"

"No you go ahead I have a few more kinks to work out of my article."

"You know you don't get overtime right?"

"Yeah, yeah go I'll try to meet you there."

"Sure you will, well at least remember it's Friday you know gateway to the weekend, a land of all things work free."

"Point taken now go before the people of the working suck you back in." Amy laughed hurrying to catch up to the others heading down to the local bar.

Rubbing her eyes she tried to refocus on the article. There was still something out of place. It just didn't flow. Frustrated she pushed back from her desk in search of her ninth cup of coffee. An influx of caffeine should put her mind back on track.

"Gilmore you still here?"

"Yup, you know me a nose to the grindstone kind of girl."

"Good, I've got a meeting in an hour with the publishing group that just bought out old man Cagney. They picked up all ten of his papers. You haven't by chance seen any of our recent reports?"

"What, how did we not know about this before? Most groups that come in want to look at the running of each branch, get the numbers, circulation demographics, the nuts and bolts stuff before they buy!"

"Yeah, well from what I know we were an after thought. They wanted the New York paper, but the old man wanted out I guess cause it was an all or nothing kind of deal."

"So they buy ten papers to get one without looking at any of the others!"

"I guess." He shrugged.

"How did you not know this?"

"I'm sure I got a memo some where, never can find anything on that desk. So about those reports…"

Rory flexed and un-flexed her hands, sometimes her editor drove her mad. How he even became editor was still undetermined. He had no organization and habitually turned in copies late to the printers (which than had her on the phone begging them to print it anyway), further more the staff had all the discipline of a group of five year olds and he did nothing about it. Rory questioned why she had taken this job every day, needing to remind herself that she was still close to her family and had a career that was a lot further along being at a small time paper.

She began to pace still needing that ninth cup of coffee. "Okay give me the name of the company, I'll research them see what I can find. I know where most of our recent numbers are I'll pull those together. Let's hope they're not all prepared seeing as we were an after thought; let us get the upper hand. Brew some strong coffee and get the conference room set up. We need pencils, notebooks, pens, water, coffee, and have a restaurant order ready just in case. We'll show them what we can do, an after thought ha!"

"Wow, Gilmore!"

Rory stopped midway to her desk, "Al what's the name of the group."

"Oh, um Huntz something."

"Huntz, as in Huntzberger Publishing group?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Oh no." Rory paled placing a hand on her stomach to steady her breathing.

"Hey you okay Rory?"

"What, yeah fine. Look you get everything set up, I'll do the research and get the reports."

Rory rushed to the bathroom to splash water on her face. Five years, she had been in the newspaper business five years and not once had she heard that name. Grant it the paper she worked on wasn't the big time, but still the name Huntzberger in the publishing-media world spoke for itself. She looked at her watch she had fifty minutes to pull everything together, forty if he was early.

Logan stepped off the elevator to find a deserted newsroom, he wondered if there was a paper here at all. He was reaching for his cell when a heavy set balding man with perspiration beading at his forward came rushing towards him. "You must be from the publishing group." He panted moping his forehead with a handkerchief and than placing it back in his pocket. He held out his hand.

"Yes, I'm Logan Huntzberger." The man's hand was just as sweaty as the rest of him and he almost regretted shaking it.

"I'm Al Buntz. Huntzberger, wow sending the big wigs down to meet with us."

"Mr. Buntz it's standard procedure, we like to personally see what each one of our papers is doing, all part of the process. I am on a bit of a time crunch today, so if you would show me to your office we could get started. This shouldn't take to long I just want to get a feel for the paper before meeting with everyone Monday."

"Sure thing, by the way just call me Al. We actually are meeting in the conference room. I have one of my staffers pulling numbers and should be joining us in a minute. Can I get you anything?"

"No thanks."

-

Rory grabbed the rest of her files trying to get them as organized as possible. "Al are you read… Logan!" Rory stopped dead almost dropping her files.

"Hi Ace."

Rory couldn't keep her mouth closed, as she stood frozen. It didn't occur to her that he would be the one coming to review them, not on a preliminary meeting.

"Good you here Rory, Mr. Huntzberger was saying he's on a bit of a time crunch…"

"Oh, of course. " she took a seat at the middle of the table.

"So Al, give me the overview."

"Well, we are a small town paper serving roughly sixty-two to seventy thousand people. We do compete with about two other local papers excluding all nationally based papers. Our readership has gone up significantly over the past three to four years. We pride ourselves on that home town feel. Advertising is up as we are doing more research on our reader base so we can better solicit them." Rory recited not giving Al the chance, not that he would have known.

"How are your profits?"

"There up."

"Expenditures?"

"Normal for any paper, but still could use some tweaking."

"Readership?

"As I said before, it's gone up significantly in the past three to four years."

"You have reports to that affect?"

"All here organized and color coded."

Logan smiled in spite of himself. "I would expect nothing less Ace. I am most interested right now in profitability, so I'll look at those reports first."

"Of course you would be."

"What was that?"

"I said of course you would."

"Care to elaborate on that?"

"Well Logan I'm just saying I would care about profitability too. I mean this being a minor string attached to your original deal with Mr. Cagney. I mean those all or nothing kind of deals whew. What is this meeting, a quick look at the numbers to see if this paper is worth keeping or have you already decided to absorb it into one of your bigger papers? Hey it's a numbers game right. I mean what's six or seven papers that can easily be absorbed to show that this was a smart business move to buy all ten when only one truly interested you. That's a mighty big risk to profit; not that Huntzberger publishing can't handle it. Still the investors may not be happy, or board members for that matter. And I'm guessing if you're here that this was all your doing so, not only is it the big wigs we're trying to impress it's the head guy himself, so tell me is it just a numbers game?"

"Mr. Huntzberger I am very sorry, I don't know what has gotten into Rory," Al had been sitting there the entire time speechless.

"Not to worry Al your star reporter here is on the right track, she jumps easily to conclusions but I always did like a good argument. Ace look this is business, and your right this deal does need to be profitable and there were some unforeseen costs with buying out all of Mr. Cagney's papers. Hell I could walk in here absorb this paper and freelance articles to this area, it would save me a lot of time and money, but that's not what I want to do. Call me an idealist, but I like to see the little guy win. So instead we are going to set up shop here for a while see what this paper can do and than I will make my final decision. Tonight was just a preliminary overview, I am going to look at the numbers over the weekend, Monday we'll set up the department head meetings and get to work. Al do you have a couple of offices open?"

"What, ah yeah we keep a few open for traveling writers and storage"

"I'm going to need one as are a few of my staff. Ace, where's your office I'm sure you have the rest of these numbers in there."

" Oh, she doesn't have an office she's one of my staff writers."

"Well, that's going to change, Al. Set up Rory in an office. I need to know all the ins and outs of this paper, she's got a good handle on things."

"But she's a writer."

"Al, my man anyone can see that Ace here is not just a writer she has set here roots in this place knows the ins and outs, has made it her own. This makes her very valuable to me so she gets an office. If she wants to write I am sure she'll fit it in. Now Ace the rest of those reports."

"I'll get them." He followed her out leaving Al to wonder all that had transpired. "How are you Rory?"

"Fine Logan, how are you?

'"You know me."

"Somehow I don't think I do. Anyway here are the rest of the reports," she dropped another stack of multicolored folders onto her desk, it was bigger than those she had handed him in the conference room, "I hope these help."

"Sure they will. See you Monday, Tell Al we start at 9am sharp. Make sure you're there."

"Got it."

They both stood there neither breaking eye contact. "It's good to see you Ace."

"You…" Logan held up his hand as his cell went off.

"Sorry we'll have to pick this up later, I really need to get this. If anything I will see you Monday." He pressed the elevator button down and disappeared.

Rory let out a breath she had not realized she was holding. She had always wondered what it would be like to run into Logan, this was not what she had pictured. She didn't know what to make of it, the last time she had seen him was at her graduation and now to in business with him. Right now her head could not handle it. It was time to go home, she could think about it later.

"Yeah, just got out of the meeting. Gotta tell you dad it wasn't exactly what I expected. Oh no you were right the editor is an idiot. His staff writer could run the paper better than him. In fact I'm pretty sure she does. I don't think he has a clue. Yeah we are going to have to cut him a severance package and let him go. I'll let you see for yourself on Monday. I figure set up shop there for a few months get a feel for it and make my final decision. Yeah I am going to pour over the numbers this weekend. You to, safe flight."

Logan shoved his phone into his pocket and made his way to the waiting car. Five years, that was how long it had been since he had last seen her. She was still as beautiful as ever, still as infuriating, and she could still make him laugh. He laughed as he looked at the stack of color-coded files on the seat next to him that was his Ace. His Ace, funny how was that thought was still there. This was definitely going to be an interesting few months.