Author's Note: Clearly, I do not own Gilmore Girls. If I did, I'd be rich, not up at 3 AM posting fanfiction. Well, maybe I would for funsies. But, sadly, I'm just little old me, trying to make myself feel better about the way this beautiful show ended. Oh! Titles and most chapter titles will come from a Jukebox the Ghost song, "Don't Let Me Fall Behind." Beautiful song. Wonderful band. Check them out if you're into piano driven pop/rock (think Ben Folds/Jack's Mannequin, etc.) I hope you enjoy – please review if you're so inclined. I've been terrified to post a GG fic. Here goes nothing. Also, I have an erratic schedule, so my updates won't be regular, per se, but I definitely would like to finish this if there's interest from you. Here goes…
I'm the Ghost of Your Past and Mine, Slowly Combined
Rory Gilmore rubbed her eyes and looked up at the clock on the wall outside her cubicle. She sighed as she closed her laptop – another late night at the office. The only nights she made it out before nine were usually due to a phone call from either Paris or her mother, checking up on her to make sure she wasn't still at work. Though both were busy with their own lives, they still made time to badger Rory into having some semblance of a life again.
She had spent a long year and a half on the campaign trail covering Obama's run for president, and while it was grueling in a way she never imagined life on the road would be, she left her first real job with glowing recommendations and a world of opportunities open to her. After weighing offers from several small and large market newspapers, she settled on a feature reporting job at a small weekly paper in NYC – the City Scene. It wasn't exactly what she had imagined as a girl; she was writing articles and reviews on various hotspots and events in the city, but after her time writing about nothing but politics on the trail, a lighter job appealed to her. Not to mention being a big fish in a small pond assured her bylines every week.
She knew she could "do more" – Paris made sure to mention it every time she called. What Rory could never tell her is that she didn't have the heart to leave New York because that's where the last of her ties were. All the larger market jobs she was offered were spread around the nation, and after being gone for almost two years, she felt she needed the comfort of being able to drive to Stars Hollow whenever she was feeling lonely. It was embarrassing being a twenty-four year old who was still afraid to leave her mommy behind.
The truth was, even living close to her mother and grandparents, she still felt alone most of the time. Her mother had rekindled her romance with Luke shortly after Rory left for the trail and her relationship with her grandparents had never really been the same after she moved out of their pool house some years ago. She still saw them every other Friday night for dinner, but the awkwardness that arose from her grandmother realizing Rory was more like her mother than she and her grandfather had initially thought never completely went away.
On top of that, everyone she was close to during her time at Yale had moved on with their lives. Paris was happily living in Boston with Doyle, Lane was busy Zack and the twins, and after her rejection of Logan's proposal, she hadn't had any contact with Colin, Steph, or Finn. That hurt her more than she thought it would – she hadn't realized how close she had gotten to them during her relationship with Logan until they vanished from her life. She did see Lucy and Olivia occasionally due to the nature of her job, but they also had their own lives and her contact with them was sporadic, at best.
She hadn't realized how long she had been sitting at her desk at an embarrassingly late hour on a Friday until her cell rang from deep inside her purse. Thinking it was probably Lorelai calling to fill her in on Friday night dinner, she jumped for her bag, longing to hear a friendly voice. As she swept her arm across the desk, she knocked her last cup of coffee of the day into her lap.
"Damn it," she muttered, opting to try to blot the stain out of her grey pencil skirt rather than get the phone as the ringing stopped as abruptly as it started. She gathered up her things and made her way to the restroom to try to repair some of the damage if she could before heading home for the night and completely forgot about her phone beeping in her bag with an unheard message.
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Logan Huntzberger rubbed his eyes as he threw his phone down on his bed. Voicemail. Of course. He had changed his number shortly after the declined proposal, convinced he would never get over the embarrassment of being turned down by the girl he loved more than anything in the world. He had gone as far as to ask Steph, Colin, Finn, and Honor to "lose" her number.
He changed everything. Jobs, phone numbers, email addresses, and zip codes. He even thought he changed his mind about spending the rest of his life with her. He spent the last year and a half trying to get her out of his head. He even tried to go back to his philandering ways, but found it was a lot more difficult once he knew what love was. Everything was empty. His office, his house…his heart.
He kept up with her pieces while she was on the campaign trail. It really wasn't hard to find out where she would be at any given time, considering he knew her boss, Hugo – introduced her to him, even. So much for that big, wide open future she had wanted being hindered by him and his lifestyle.
He saw her a few times. Houston. Chicago. And, much closer to home, San Francisco. He watched her from afar, each time meaning to finally go up and speak to her. But each time, he found that even the king of huge, romantic gestures had no idea of what to do to even begin to see if the rift between them could ever be repaired. Instead, he just drank in her face. He watched her scribble furiously in a notepad. He saw her tuck loose strands of hair behind her ear in a very familiar gesture. Then he would go home to his empty house – what was meant to be their home.
He never thought to try calling her. He had assumed she had changed her number as he had. When he finally called it almost two years after he had walked away from her on the Yale campus, he was shocked to hear the familiar voice: "Hello, you've reached Rory Gilmore. Please leave a message after the beep." He was slightly saddened it wasn't a more eclectic greeting, knowing what he did of the Gilmore girls, but realized she was now the professional woman she had always wanted to become.
He almost hung up, but didn't. He set his tumbler down on the table out in the yard, gazing at the avocado tree, and told himself to jump.
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Rory sat on her couch with her carton of lo mein and flipped on the television. She had done her best to salvage her skirt with the Tide pen in her purse and some water at work before taking a cab back to her apartment, not wanting to walk with a half soaked skirt in the slightly chilly autumn air. She jumped as her phone rang a few minutes later, got up, and dug around in her oversized bag until she found it at the bottom.
"I am going to kill your grandmother. If anyone asks, you are my alibi. I was in New York. I was at whatever hotspot you are researching tonight with you. I –"
"So, dinner was that good, huh?" Rory quipped, as she settled in happily.
"It would have been a lot better if my favorite daughter would have been there to take the heat off of her beautiful, radiant mother."
Rory sighed, "Mom, I told you to tell grandma the engagement with Luke was back on months ago."
"Well, sure. Because why would I want to have missed out on this wonderful evening? They were ecstatic! They barely brought up Luke's "filthy" business, and his illegitimate daughter, and our previous failed engagement!"
"When are you going to learn keeping things from them isn't actually going to make the moment you have to tell them disappear?"
Lorelai pouted, "Shouldn't it?"
"Sorry, mom. I don't even think the Gilmore powers of persuasion are enough to keep the universe from keeping Emily Gilmore from her daughter's wedding plans. Sorry I didn't call you back sooner, by the way. I had an extreme wardrobe malfunction while working late."
"No need to explain to me, Janet! It happens to the best of us…but this is the first time I've called you today. I mean, I texted and emailed you, but a girl does have her limits…"
Rory checked her missed calls as Lorelai rambled, worried it may have been her editor giving her a weekend assignment. She stopped dead when she saw the area code: 650. It was familiar to her, because once she realized Logan changed his number, she looked up the Palo Alto area code in case he tried to contact her. She had almost forgotten about it after all this time. Then she saw there was a voicemail.
"…Rory? Are you still there?"
"Um, yeah, mom…sorry. I just saw a voicemail I missed while at work. It might be important. I'm going to have to let you go. But, um, I'm sorry for tonight and…"
"Duty calls! Go check out the newest hotspot in town, take pictures of celebrities doing dirty things! Send them to me first."
Rory laughed, halfheartedly. "Not sure how crazy it will be yet. I'll let you know."
"Okay. But I expect those pictures of Rihanna…doing whatever crazy thing it is she's doing before I see it in the tabloids. Wink."
Rory rolled her eyes, "I'll be sure to do that, if I see anything. Goodnight, mom. Don't torment Luke too much over tonight. Say hi to him for me."
"Will do, kid. Night."
Rory held her breath and pushed the button to listen to her voicemail, which most decidedly, had nothing to do with work.
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BEEP.
"Hey, Rory…it's…Logan. Logan Huntzberger. I guess you probably could have guessed that last part," he laughed nervously. "I don't know if you've tried to contact me. I tried to make sure you couldn't. But I…I still can't stop myself from thinking about you. I've been watching you, I mean your career, god, I don't mean to sound like a stalker. I'm proud of you. You're doing what you always wanted to do. I don't have a grand gesture this time, just some news. I'm coming back east. I'm coming home. I'm…I guess I'm just wondering if you'd want to get coffee when I come home? Talk sometime? Well…I guess you have my number, now. Call, if you want. I hope you do. I'd like to…well, I hope to hear from you. Okay. I guess that's it. Bye, Ace."