Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Gilmore Girls, not the characters, the places, and possibly not even the plot, since I'm convinced everything I'm writing is absolutely canon.

A/N: In case any of you were wondering, the Summary and the Title are referencing the show How I Met Your Mother, where (spoiler alert) one of the main characters, Barney, stages a pretend engagement to Patrice in order to convince the girl he really wants, Robin, that they were meant to be together. It's silly, complex, and highly improbable, but it works. And the first thing I thought when I was watching the Revival was, "He's doing The Robin." So, anyway.


There were a lot of things Logan was feeling right in that moment. Shock, awe, fear, confusion, just to name a few. But what stood out, what really seemed to just hit him over the head so hard he was seeing blinding, flashing lights, was the profound sense of hurt.

She'd hurt him before. His heart had broken when she'd refused his proposal. He'd felt sliced open when she let him walk away at that bed and breakfast without even trying to stop him. But he'd never before felt this devastating shattering sensation like everything inside of him had exploded in tiny shards of pain.

He wasn't used to giving away his feelings on his face, but she must have seen something because she turned to the man hovering protectively beside her and said, "Jess, thank you for the lunch, I think you should go now."

Logan remembered this guy as being a total dick. If he wasn't so shell-shocked, he might have bothered to feel something about the way Jess's hand was resting on Rory's back, and the way he was being glared at as if Logan were the interloper.

Ignoring Rory's request, Jess's tone was caustic as he called out to him, "She doesn't need you, Huntzberger."

Logan didn't even bother responding, the man was completely inconsequential. All that mattered was Rory and him and this monumental secret she'd been keeping.

"Jess!" she asked him again, her voice pleading, "please just go!"

He did leave, but not without a glare that made it clear glaring was one of his specialties. And as his parting shot, he yelled behind him, "I'm going to get Lorelai!"

"Jess!" Rory chastised him, knowing she was talking to his back. "Just leave it alone. I can handle him."

Logan didn't even wait until Jess was out of sight. His voice was low and sarcastic as he said, "Oh, I'm just something to be handled?"

"You know what I mean," Rory sighed tiredly. Logan didn't miss the slim hand that she rested lightly on her stomach. Where she'd seemed to be glowing and happy only moments before, Logan could see the tell-tale signs that she'd been under stress. There were lines on her face, darkness under her eyes, like she wasn't sleeping well.

"Come inside." She reentered the building and motioned him in. "Esther and Charlie go home for lunch, we can be private here." As she put the key back into her pocket from locking the door behind her, she turned and brought her eyes up to his. There was a wealth of emotion in that look, but Logan was too filled with his own thoughts to sift through what she might be feeling.

"Not even a kiss for the father of your child?" he asked, knowing it was hurtful, but unable to stop himself.

"Logan," she protested quietly, dropping into the nearest chair and looking away from him again.

"How could you do this to me, Rory?" he wondered, the hurt spilling over in his voice as he began to pace agitatedly in the foyer.

She raised her eyebrows. "You mean get pregnant? There are some who would argue, and have, actually, that you did this to me."

"Don't be cute," he said, bitterly. "How could you hide this from me? How could you think for one second that I didn't deserve to know that I was going to be a father?"

She shook her head, torn. "I was going to tell you, Logan."

"When?!" he shouted at her, the suddenness causing her to flinch. "When I heard it from my mother who heard it while playing cards that the girl I'd meant to marry had gone and gotten herself pregnant and the father had just run off leaving them dry? When I saw the birth announcement in the papers that Emily Gilmore is a great-grandmother? When? When were you going to tell me, Rory?" He was so angry. So hurt. She almost thought she could see the pain spilling out of him in waves.

"I'm sorry," she said. But of course, it wasn't enough.

He couldn't resist adding the little jab. "When you needed money?"

"Logan!" she scolded him. "You know me better than that."

"I thought I did!" His voice was still loud. "But more than that, Rory, I thought you knew who I was. I thought you knew that you could trust me, that you could rely on me, that I would be here for you and for whoever else might come along. That I would never, ever abandon a child, my child!"

"I did know that, Logan. I do know that." She fiddled with her hands in her lap, taking a breath like she was about to launch into a speech.

But he wouldn't let her. "You took that decision away from me! My child would have been born, and I wouldn't have even known! As if I was just some trust-fund brat sowing wild oats and scattering by-blows across the countryside!"

"No, Logan! Like we were a couple of consenting adults who made a mistake. I would have told you in time. I was just waiting…" her voice trailed off, unsure.

He scoffed. "Waiting for what? What sign could you have possibly needed to see to reassure you that now is the time to inform Logan Huntzberger that there's a child with his DNA?"

She sighed again. "I was waiting to hear that you and Odette had married."

"What?" he turned, exploding on her again. "What difference could that have possibly made?"

"I just thought—"

"You didn't think!" he accused her.

"I didn't want to ruin your dynastic plan!" she finally shouted back at him.

"My what?"

"Your dynastic plan. All the plans your father and your family had for you and for your French heiress. I didn't want to get in the way of it. I didn't want my pregnancy to throw a wrench in the works."

He just looked at her, surprised at how he could still have enough of his heart left to be hurt by the casual way she discussed him getting married to another, and that she'd truly had no intention of stopping him.

He finally conceded to sit in the big chair across from her desk, and he put his head in his hands for a moment while Rory's last words echoed in the air. When he raised his head, he corrected her, softly, "Odette is nobody."

"You may not love her, Logan, but she still deserves your respect and not to be suddenly confronted with her husband's love child when she's supposed to be planning a wedding."

"I do love her!" he said forcefully.

She was taken aback by that unexpected declaration. Her face was stiff as she was trying not to let that statement hurt her, and told herself repeatedly not to react. She didn't have any right to claim his love entirely for her own. It was ridiculous for her to have comforted herself with the knowledge that he didn't feel anything for the woman he was going to marry.

"You were Odette!" he practically shouted in her face, past the point of being able to inform her with any finesse.

"What?" On the heels of the previous statement, she was having trouble processing what he was trying to tell her. Her mind snatched onto the only logical protest she could make. "I'm not a French heiress!"

"You've been to France. Twice," he said, inanely, as if that somehow made the assertion more clear.

She looked at him like he'd lost his mind, and wondered if perhaps it was actually she that was going crazy. She'd heard pregnancy hormones could cause all kinds of mental disruptions. And what did it say about her that her first hallucination was the father of her child tracking her down and calling her his affianced French heiress?

Contemplating this potential turn of events, she almost missed what he said next. "And you like to wear those mannish pantsuits."

"What!" she exclaimed again, not sure if she should be offended or not. Did she dress like a Frenchwoman who had inherited a lot of money and business holdings? Was that a thing?

"The French like to wear those slim pantsuits with the straight lines." The casual wave of his hand was dismissive as if the fact were unimportant to the conversation, which might be true, tangled as it was.

"How is—what could that—" Rory was at a loss for words. She'd gotten sidetracked. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then snapped out, "Explain, Huntzberger." They both knew that she didn't mean about French styles of dress.

He cocked his head and just gave her that same poker-face that always infuriated her, and so she broke the silence before it had even gotten a chance to settle in. "I'm not Odette." Her voice dared him to contradict her.

His response, with the tiniest smirk that sent shivers down her back, reminding her of a thousand other more pleasant times, was, "I'm not Didi."

There was a beat while they both contemplated the truth of that remark.

"That doesn't make any sense!" she protested, even though in a convoluted sort of way it did. "That's too Slytherin, even for you!"

"You wanted to keep it a secret! What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, remember?"

She didn't have to answer, remembering the words she'd uttered many times, particularly when she was feeling insecure or when she was trying to remind herself not to grow too attached. It wasn't a big deal if it was only on occasion, she'd told herself. No reason to feel guilty if it didn't mean anything, she'd reasoned. Don't get used to it, you were both going separate ways.

"So when my parents were pressuring me about dating, I told them I was seeing Odette. A French heiress who occasionally wears mannish pantsuits. It started there, and then it escalated."

She was truly shocked now. "And you never said anything to me? You let me think I was just some bit-on-the-side and a dirty cheater?"

The little stab that she didn't have any trouble thinking of him as a cheater was so small in context that he almost didn't feel it.

"You were a cheater, Ace." His words quietly reminded her that even though Odette wasn't real, Percy or Pierce or whatever his name was, had been a real person who'd thought he was in a committed relationship. For two years, every time they were together, she was cheating.

Her mouth opened and closed at that, unable to formulate a response.

All she could come up with was, "You lied to me."

"Are we going to count up the lies, Rory? Even the ones by omission? I feel like I'm going to win that one."

"I was going to tell you!" she asserted once more, uselessly, knowing her lie was far more deceitful and far more hurtful.

Logan didn't answer. He looked at the face of the woman he loved, and one thing kept going around and around in his head. "Dammit, Rory! You didn't believe in me. You were just going to take her and go."

She didn't deny the charge, the guilt already starting to settle in on her shoulders, and zeroed in on a different part of his words. "What makes you think the baby will be a 'her'?"

"Isn't it?" he returned, wryly.

There was a silence while Rory contemplated giving him the news this way. She had a tasteful little card with the sonogram results printed on it, in the box of memorabilia she'd been saving for when she finally told him. Doctor's checkups, the pregnancy test, of course all the copies of the sonograms. The box was small, as there wasn't much to tell yet, and she was determined to let him know before there was a need for a bigger box. But her poorly chosen plans were up in smoke now, anyway.

"Yes," she admitted, and watched his eyes grow bright with unshed tears.

"Dammit, Rory," he said again, softly, shaking his head like he just couldn't believe it. "I should have been there. I missed it all. You made me miss it."

"I know," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

He scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to think clearly around the rollercoaster of emotions that was whipping him around. There was pain and shock vibrating in the air, but through it all there was one thing that was absolutely clear.

"We're getting married," he announced.

"What?" Her expression was flabbergasted, though he didn't see how his words could be a surprise.

"Before this baby comes, we're getting married. I'm not letting her be born out of wedlock."

"Out of wedlock? What is this, the 1800's? Is there something wrong, something innately inferior about being born out of wedlock?"

"You know there is, Rory. In our circles, if she's ever going to have the respect she'll need—" He stopped when he saw the look in her eye. The look that reminded him that she was a Gilmore, and that she didn't need to have been born a Hayden in order to achieve the numerous goals she set out for herself.

"I won't get married just to give my baby a name! She has a name. She's going to be a Gilmore."

He changed his tactic, knowing what he said next could determine their entire future. "I've always wanted to marry you, Rory. I never wanted you to be some side-fling, but you seemed so set on minimizing our relationship. I thought if I waited long enough, you'd finally realize that we are good together! That we make each other better. I know you have made me a better man than I could ever have been without you. I want you, Rory. You and me. And the baby makes three. I want you both. I didn't even know how badly until right this very minute."

Walking over to her behind her desk, he continued, "There are very few things I can say with absolute certainty but these things I know." He ticked them off on his fingers. "That my niece is the most beautiful girl in the world, and she has about three months before she gets dethroned." He grinned at her. "That you are going to be the most wonderful mother. And I'm going to at least be a better father than my own was." She rolled her eyes at that, acknowledging that it wasn't hard to be more paternal than Mitchum Huntzberger.

He reached over to cup her face in his warm hands, noting that just the touch made her eyes already well with tears. She still felt something very powerful for him. He still had a chance. "And I knew long before I knew this baby—our baby—existed, which means at least more than an hour ago, that I cannot live without you, Rory Gilmore."

He planted a chaste kiss on her lips, as the water spilled over her eyelids. Then he let her go. "Forty years in space, Ace. You had to know I was always waiting for you."

Free of his arms, she sniffled and reached for a tissue from the box on her desk, her hand shaking as she blew her nose. He'd clearly flustered her.

He observed her in silence as she tried to regain her composure and then said in a quiet tone of voice that was almost surprised, "I sure missed you."

She noticed that his eyes had recovered that measure of warmth she was used to that made her feel like she was going to fall right into him, safe and secure and loved. She'd missed him, too. So much.

It was all too overwhelming for her. "I can't—just right now—it's not—" She blew her nose again, and waved her other hand helplessly, trying to convey what she couldn't express in words.

Logan sighed. "I know." He stood up to leave, feeling exhausted. They'd both just been run through the wringer. It was unfair for him to demand an answer of her now, and it was unlikely she'd give it. "Listen, I'm staying at the Dragonfly, the new one."

She gave him a funny look through her watery eyes. Then she asked, "How long?"

"However long it takes, Ace. I'm not going anywhere."


A/N: I mostly really wanted to get this idea and these chapters out there, because I'm tired of hearing a couple of things after the revival. I'm tired of hearing people say that Logan is a terrible person for cheating, and therefore Rory should be with Jess. Rory was a cheater, too, and by that logic, she doesn't deserve Jess, either. And don't forget she slept with that wookiee, cheating on Paul (and Logan) even further. Rory's not a saint. And Logan is not the devil.

And when I hear people say how Logan is Rory's Christopher, and so then Jess is going to be her Luke, it makes me very irritated. Are we thirteen year old girls? Can we come up with anything triter than this idea of a cycle that keeps churning things out exactly the same? Even in The Wheel of Time, the point of retelling the same story is to show how it is DIFFERENT. Rory is not a sixteen year old, scared and alone, with no support. Logan is not a flighty teenager who doesn't want to take responsibility for his own actions. If there is any purpose at all in ending the show when Rory gets pregnant, it's to show how differently the same situation can be when the circumstances around it are vastly different, when two ADULTS who love each other cope with a life-changing circumstance.

Anyway, thanks for reading/reviewing/following/favoriting so quickly. I'm surprised at how fast this was received and appreciated. I think I've got one more chapter in my head (but I don't know when I'll have the time to write it), and then…well…I don't know what happens then. I'd be up for suggestions if anyone wants to throw them my way. Send them by PM if you do.