Disclaimer: I don't own GG.

Summary: Rory Gilmore grew up with Emily and Richard after Chris and Lorelei went off to pursue their own dreams. This is obviously an AU. It will eventually be a Rory/ Logan, but for now they're just best friends. It might be a slow build for a few reasons, one I want it to be. Two, I want to see them as friends for a while. Also, this starts with Rory in Chilton but the boys at Yale.

Chapter 1

"Logan! I can't believe you did that!" Rory's voice had officially reached a decibel that no one in the group had heard.

"Hey, don't let him take all the credit! We were there too." Finn quickly piped in while waving his finger in between Colin and himself. All the while Colin looked like he felt an ounce of guilt.

"Can you not turn that wrath on us Finn? Please, Gilmore gets scary and I'm already going to hear it from my dad."

"No, you are going to hear it from me too! God, I can't believe you guys. Why did you have to pick my grandparent's house to pull this bullshit guys?"

"Ace, once you get to college—" Logan finally tried to get a word in edge wise, but Rory was not having it.

"Don't 'college' me Logan Elias Huntzberger or I swear to God I will make sure you regret every other word you dare to utter." Logan had never seen her so mad, she didn't just look mad, she looked lethal. It was just supposed to be a stupid prank, steal something from a wealthy family's home, replace with something they had stolen from the last house and the tradition continued. It was something that they had been doing all up and down the eastern seaboard, they didn't expect Emily Gilmore.

"I'm sorry Ace, we really didn't expect Emily to notice."

"No! No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, you should have expected Emily Perfectionist Gilmore would notice anything out of place." Rory quickly shot off while still throwing daggers with her eyes. Logan had known her since she was in first grade and he was in second, right before he met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern over there. He had to have known, they all should have known. "God you guys, what the hell! I expected better from the three of you, maybe that was my fatal flaw, expecting you guys to just be decent human beings for one night!"

"I have been a perfect gentleman tonight my wonderful Rory. I haven't even drunk my whole flask!" As Rory quickly drew her eyes to Finn Logan and Colin tried to slink away before she grabbed them both by their jackets.

"Guys, just, I don't want to see another maid fired, even grandpa remembers this one's name. It's just that I just wanted you to realize that tonight was supposed to be a special night for me and I wanted to have a special dinner, but we didn't even get to it. I wouldn't have asked you guys here if it wasn't and I just hoped for a modicum of decency." Rory finally relented, she was exhausted, the graduation party planning, the grandparents breathing down her neck, the college acceptance letters that had finally come in. She was planning on telling them tonight that she had not only gotten into Stanford, Princeton, Harvard and Yale, but that she had actually decided to go to Yale.

"Why Ace, what is so important about tonight?"

"Nothing, it's not much now. Listen I'm really tired, I haven't slept much at all these past few weeks. Can we just pick this up tomorrow or maybe even next weekend? Yeah, next weekend will be good. I'll see you guys then." With that Rory walked away from the group of guys that she had been so excited to see not even an hour ago. As she closed the pool house door and collapsed on the couch she took off her heels and unpinned her hair. Emily had insisted that if she would be going out with 3 men she must not look like a "floozy" although how pin straight long hair made her look like a floozy she had never understood.

As the boys stood outside staring at the door that Rory just went through they all looked at each other wondering who was going to go in after her. Actually, Logan was wondering, the other two knew that Logan would be the only one able to fully calm her down.

"Guys, what do we do? She looked so mad." Logan was speaking out loud but not looking for any answers.

"Well of course she was mad, she didn't want us to get in trouble and also we could have gotten her in trouble. You know how stressed she has been. It's been weeks since she has even been able to hang out with us because she has been so busy. We were supposed to be able to just hang out with her tonight and it all got messed up. Just go talk to her Logan."

"She's not going to listen to me guys."

"Yes, she will. Just try, we'll call Frank and head home, you just stay with her until she talks. It would do you both some good. Isn't there something you wanted to talk to her about anyway?" Colin knew what it was about, he was going to ask her to come onto the yacht with them this summer, and Logan was a frantic mess about it. "Something about the yacht perhaps?"

"No, I decided not to have her go with us."

"Wait! What?" Finally, Finn spoke up, as he looked away from the bottom of his now empty flask. "Why isn't she going?"

"I just don't think Emily would let her go, don't want to get her hopes up only for them to get dashed, you know." Logan quickly said, he had practiced this reason in his head numerous times. He couldn't figure out why he didn't want Rory there, okay, he knew exactly why. But he couldn't tell them that. Not yet anyway. "Okay boys. I'm going to go in and figure out how to get us out of this mess."

As the door opened Rory didn't even look up. "Logan, please, don't make me barricade myself in my room, I'm much to tired for that right now and I can't fight." As Logan sat at the other end of the couch and took her feet into his lap he began to massage them.

"I'm not here to fight Rory, I'm just here to say that I really am sorry. I wasn't thinking, it's this Yale thing kind of and I got carried away. I really wasn't thinking and I'm sorry. Just, can you look at me?"

"Wow, if this is a Yale thing, maybe I made a mistake in accepting my spot there?" Rory said it so casually that Logan wasn't sure he heard her correctly.

"Wait! Yale!? You picked YALE!?" He was so excited that he had hopped off the couch and had almost missed the light nodding of her head. "Oh my god! You're going to be at Yale with us. But wait, I thought you wanted to go to Sanford?" He said that word with so much disdain, he had been furious with her when she brought up the idea of going to the West Coast.

"SANFORD?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RORY! Do you know what happens on the west coast?"

"Um, I get more tan?" She had expected him to be upset, even a little mad, but the fury was something she hadn't expected to see from him. After her little tan comment Logan glared at her and stormed out.

That had been the longest they had gone without speaking, 6 weeks, 4 days, and 10 hours. It wasn't until Logan made up needing some notes she had taken for one of their classes. It had been her junior and his senior year and it was an awful bout of quietness and animosity. Since then, they never spoke about her college choices.

"I did want to go to Sanford, I didn't want to be her where every college had a legacy of mine. Chris and Lorelei took Harvard by storm, and the Gilmore's had obviously been pushing for Yale, and the Hayden's had their hold on Princeton. I just wanted to get away from it all. I couldn't imagine not living up to anyone's standards and the pressure scared the hell out of me." Rory's voice cracked, she had only admitted these fears to two other people, and she always wanted to tell Logan.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"When was I ever allowed to say the s-word around you Logan? Colin and Finn knew, I'm surprised they didn't say anything."

Logan looked as guilty as he felt. He had made her hide something from him and not only that, but it was a deep fear and insecurity she had. "So, apparently I've just been a jackass a lot lately?"

"Yep. Pretty much!" Rory flashed him a smile that told him that every ill word, and stupid thing he had done that night was forgiven.

"I'm guessing that was the reason for our little party this evening? You're coming to Yale with us?"

"That I am Huntzberger! Now, I think I need to get used to my new campus, care to take me to the Pub tonight?"

"I tell you what, can we call your driver and have him drop us off, I'll have the boys meet us there and we can spend the evening hanging out. You won't have to worry about—"

But before he could finish his thoughts she was bounding into her bedroom, quickly changing into a pair of skinny dark wash jeans and a Yale t-shirt with a simple jean jacket. She came back into the room throwing on her flip-flops as he was finishing the text message to Colin to inform them to meet them there. He stared at her for a half beat longer than necessary and returned the smile she had on her face while she muttered something about not looking like a floozy.

RLRL

As they made their way through the crowd of people they spotted their friends and as Rory took off her jacket she smirked at Logan, waiting to see when the other two boys would get the hint that was splayed across her chest. It wasn't for a full round of drinks before Colin finally asked when she got the new shirt.

"Wow, a whole round and finally we have a mention." Rory muttered begrudgingly as she pulled a 50 dollar bill out of her wallet and handed it over to Logan.

"I told you Ace, they're oblivious."

"I just thought that they would at least glance at my chest for long enough to realize what my shirt says."

"Listen, if we were allowed to look at your chest, I certainly wouldn't be paying attention to some words." Finn said off-handedly while Colin stared wide-eyed and Logan made a look that would put Finn deep in the ground if he was paying attention.

"What do you mean if you were allowed?" Rory didn't miss the looks that were happening around the table, she just didn't understand them.

"Oh, you know, just that you're like our sister and it would be weird and awkward and yeah, that's it. It would just be weird." Colin rushed out, hoping beyond all hope that she would buy that excuse. "So, anyway Gilmore, answer the question. What's with the top? Did Logan pick it up for you one day when he missed your birthday or something?"

"Actually, I bought it for myself." Rory didn't want to focus on the chest comment to much more, so she allowed Colin's question to steer the way into the announcement. "I decided that I wanted a shirt to wear to my freshman orientation come next fall. What better way to show school pride?"

"Wait love, you're coming here?"

"That I am! You guys excited?"

"I believe that this calls for a round of shots, or something. And look, it's on me tonight since Ace seemed to have faith in you guys. Maybe Yale made a mistake in accepting someone with so little common sense." Logan smirked over to her and winked while he made his way to bar to order another round. While up there he stared back at his table where a very animated Rory explained to Colin and Finn how she landed on Yale, the same story she had relayed to him in the limo on the way here. She wanted to make her grandparents happy, after all they had done for her once her parents had decided to leave town she felt she owed Emily and Richard. "Plus, I couldn't leave you…. And Colin and Finn" she had added after a beat. He thought of that one sentence and the way her face looked so scared of her own confession.

After that confession it took every ounce of strength he had to not confess everything. That he liked her, that he would have been devastated if she would have picked Stanford, that he was falling for her. He just wanted to kiss her and tell her he was so proud of everything in her life that she had accomplished on her own merit. But instead he smiled at her and told her that she had made the right choice. Something he could see his friends saying to her back at their booth.