Okay, this chapter is far longer than I expected, and it covers a lot of ground. I wanted to wrap up this plot thread with Logan and Rory, but I've had to incorporate a lot of Gilmore/Danes family history in order to do so. The canon that's described in The Morning After and The Dynastic Plan is referenced here, as well as the follow-up to The Morning After that I may write someday. So, if you see any references to stuff that didn't happen on the show as you remember it: well, it could have happened! Maybe. Well, according to me, at least.
I've tried to strike a plausible balance here with pointing out the stuff that was horrible about Logan's behavior and also giving him a chance to explain himself. I don't see him as a villain in this situation. I know it's kind of crazy for Luke and Lorelai to have this much involvement in Rory's baby daddy woes, but I believe that she would need a lot of assistance to avoid repeating that full-circle nonsense. Like most post AYITL fanfic writers, I'm trying to put my own version out there that keeps that from happening in quite the same way.
Any reviews or comments are always welcome.
The few days that Rory had requested to herself before she was ready to talk to Logan again quickly stretched to a week. Then a week and a half. It wasn't until Rory started talking about her upcoming mid-pregnancy sonogram – and ensuing gender reveal – that Lorelai realized that the two-week mark had passed without her or Luke noticing.
It had been easy to let this topic go on the back burner again. Sookie had come back to town to complete the paperwork needed to formally dissolve their partnership and marvel over Rory's (still barely noticeable) baby bump, and Lorelai began making more concrete plans with Michel to start working on the second property. The sale had gone through in early January, but construction still looked to be delayed until early April. Lorelai wanted to be slightly more prepared for unexpected problems than she had been thirteen years ago.
Luke was similarly distracted. Rory couldn't yet decide if she merely wanted to set up the baby's room in the space that Jess and April had once occupied or if she wanted Luke to expand the apartment to give herself a little more privacy. As with all baby-related decisions, it was decided that this one could wait a few more weeks – at this point, most decisions looked to be delayed until after the gender reveal. Luke shrugged it off and continued to work on the crib he was crafting in his spare time. Jess and April passed in and out of the house, and life went on as usual, for the most part.
The one decision that Rory didn't put off was finally telling her father about her pregnancy. She drove to Boston a few days after the confrontation with Logan to deliver the news in person. Lorelai was waiting for her at the gazebo when she returned with a thermos of hot tea and a fresh platter of pie.
"How was it?" she asked tentatively as Rory lowered herself to the steps and reached for the thermos.
"It was fine," Rory responded as she tore off the top of the pie container and dug into the pie.
"Rory –"
"I don't know what to say," Rory replied in between bites. "It's, you know . . . Dad."
"I'm not sure what that means," Lorelai said with honesty.
Rory sighed. "We sat. We talked. He was surprised. He asked why I waited so long to tell him. He wanted to know when I was due. He offered money."
"Were you expecting something else?"
Rory put her fork down. "Maybe. I don't know. I was thinking after all of this time – he might try harder. He might offer something else. I'm not sure what I really wanted him to say or do, but –" Rory picked her fork back up and began eating again. "I don't know."
"Did he say he wanted to be involved?" Lorelai asked gingerly.
"No." Rory swirled the remaining pie crumbs around on the platter. "I mean, maybe that's why I'm frustrated. You and Luke and Jess and April are doing all of these things, tangible things, for me and the baby, things that mean more than money, and I think I wanted something like that from him. But that isn't really how he's wired, is it?"
Lorelai rubbed her daughter's shoulder. "I don't think so."
Rory put the top of the pie container back on top of the platter, leaving her mother a single sliver of pie, and took a sip of tea from her thermos. "It's just a disappointment, I guess."
"Well, Rory, your dad is your dad," Lorelai stated plainly. "There's not much to expect there except for well, not being able to expect much." She paused and looked Rory in the eye. "But you do know that Luke and I will always be here for you, no matter what, right?"
Rory's gaze met her mother's. "I do," she said softly.
Lorelai nodded. "Good." She opened the pie container and began to consume the remaining piece of pie as Rory's eyes remained fixed on the night sky.
"What about your grandmother?" Lorelai said after a few minutes, having obliterated all traces of raspberry deliciousness from the pie platter.
Rory didn't seem to hear her.
"Rory? Your grandmother?"
"I want to wait until after I know for sure that it's a girl," Rory said flatly, still gazing at the stars scattered far above them.
Lorelai felt that sinking feeling in her gut that always resurfaced when the subject of keeping secrets from her parents came up. She really shouldn't have let this one go on so long – but then again, it wasn't her decision to make.
"And Logan –"
"Not right now."
"Did you change your -"
"I'm going to talk to him," Rory replied, her voice taking on a sharper edge. "Before I deal with Grandma, and before the sonogram. But not tonight. Not for a few more days."
Lorelai gulped down her disapproval and stared off into the distance, wondering whether the incoming storm from Nantucket would be ferocious enough to drown the rest of Stars Hollow.
One week later, Lorelai sat at the diner counter keeping her husband company as Rory worked on her laptop at a nearby table.
"Do you notice a pattern?" she whispered to Luke as he wiped the counter.
"Not really," Luke dryly replied, putting his rag down and reaching over to replenish his cash drawer.
"She keeps hanging up on every third call," Lorelai insisted. "Watch."
Luke sighed impatiently and shut the drawer, inching closer to Lorelai as he waited for this latest drama to play out.
Rory busily typed away on keyboard until her phone buzzed. She picked it up, smiled, and started chatting animatedly.
"Jess," Lorelai whispered.
Sure enough, the conversation drifting over from Rory's table seemed mostly focused on book edits and Philadelphia food trucks.
Rory hung up after a few minutes and returned to her work.
"So?" Luke asked, not understanding what the point was.
"Just keep paying attention."
Rory's phone buzzed again and she picked it up.
"Either Lane or Paris," Lorelai said softly.
Rory seemed to be saying something about donations and the quality of DC music clubs.
"Lorelai, I'm not sure –"
"Just stay with me on this. You'll see."
"Ookay," Luke replied unsurely, putting his elbows on the counter.
Rory's phone buzzed again after another minute. She picked it up, angrily clicked a few icons, and slammed it back down on the table.
The phone buzzed again. Rory repeated the action.
Lorelai looked at Luke expectedly. He seemed to be intrigued.
Rory's phone buzzed a third time.
She picked it up and loudly said, "I don't feel like talking to you right now."
Luke and Lorelai tried to listen to her side of the conversation, having given up all pretense of pretending not to eavesdrop.
"Well, then e-mail me –"
"I'm being more than fair. You're not being fair."
"Fine."
Rory slid the phone back in her purse and began to pack up her belongings. Lorelai turned her attention to her almost-empty cup of coffee as the only other customer in the diner strolled up to the counter to pay his bill.
"Going home, kid?" Lorelai asked as Rory wearily crossed over to her stool.
"Yeah," Rory said, pausing in front of the counter and shifting her laptop bag from one arm to the other. "It's been a long day."
"We'll be home in an hour or so," Lorelai replied. Rory nodded and made her way toward the door.
Luke strolled across the floor and flipped the sign to CLOSED as soon as the door shut behind her.
"That last one was Logan," Lorelai clarified as she hauled herself up from her seat and joined Luke in cleaning up the detritus from the dirty tables.
"Figured out that part," Luke replied as he brought a handful of dirty plates over to the kitchen.
"She's lying to us, Luke."
"Not entirely," Luke said as he began to wash the plates by hand and handed them to Lorelai to dry.
"Not entirely? Luke, she's been saying for weeks that she just wasn't ready to talk to him –"
"She's not talking to him," Luke pointed out as he stacked the clean dishes back in the cabinet. "He calls, she refuses to talk, tells him she'll talk to him later. Isn't that what you wanted to show me?"
"Well, yeah."
Luke crossed over to the front of the diner and began wiping down the last of the tables, Lorelai trailing behind him. She gathered up the salt shakers and stepped behind the counter to refill them.
"So how long have you been witnessing this pattern?" Luke asked as he stacked the chairs on top of the tables.
"A couple of days," Lorelai replied as she returned the salt shakers to the tables. Luke walked back behind the counter and began filtering through his receipts.
"I thought I'd give her some time to figure things out by herself," Lorelai remarked. "But three weeks and –" She waved her hands in the air. "Nothing."
"I'm not sure what we can do here," Luke replied unsurely. "She's an adult. Logan's an adult. This kid, we can help, but –"
"I want Rory to have an easier experience of motherhood than I did," Lorelai stated. "I don't want her to have to be the person who doesn't know how to console her kid when she wonders where her dad is. I don't want her to be overwhelmed by the big stuff because she made it harder on herself than she had to. I spent my whole life making sure that wouldn't happen because I knew if I did what everyone else wanted me to do, that's where it would end up."
"Hey," Luke said, reaching for her hand. "You did the right thing for her. All along, you've always done the right thing for her. Everything that's happened recently is out of your control."
Lorelai felt her panic start to subside as his understanding blue gaze met hers. "I know."
Luke squeezed her hand. "Good."
Lorelai let go of his hand and sat back down on the stool. "I just can't let go of the feeling that this is all going to end up with the two of them screaming at each other in court. And we're going to have to take Rory's side over his, and it won't –"
"It won't be the right side."
Lorelai nodded. "Right."
"I don't think it will come to that," Luke attempted to assure her.
"Logan's not going to give up," Lorelai said. "He's got money, prestige, determination – and as much as I appreciate you pushing him out of the house, it could count against Rory in a big way. And I don't want Rory to have to go through what you did."
Luke remained silent, thinking back to his own custody trial almost a decade ago. He had come so close to losing April forever, after he had ended up unintentionally sacrificing the two people he had hoped would be the family he had secretly wanted for years. At that time, April had seemed like his remaining link to whatever humanity he still possessed. She had been the one thing that made him want to continue participating in the world.
It hadn't entirely been true, of course – he still had this town, and the diner, and all of the people who still cared for him and depended on him. Liz and TJ and Jess and Lane and Zach and all of their subsequent offspring had needed him to be there for him, regardless of the fact that remaining half of his heart that belonged to Lorelai had remained frozen. He didn't know if he would have the will to be there for them if he hadn't had April. That will hadn't existed for him the first time he lost Lorelai, when it had been easier to retreat within himself and lash out at everyone in a blind rage.
He didn't know what would have become of him if Anna had succeeded in keeping April away from him. Would he have been any use to Liz and Lane and Zach after that? Would he have made his way back to Lorelai? What kind of man would he have been? Would he have been anything close to being worthy of her and the life they shared?
"I could talk to him."
The words were out of his mouth before he even noticed it.
Lorelai scoffed. "I doubt he's going to agree to be alone with you at this point."
"We could do it here," Luke suggested. "In a public place. I think if I could just talk to him, man to man, that he wouldn't see it as a threat. He hasn't gone anywhere near Rory in a few weeks, has he?"
"I don't think so," Lorelai replied. "But how does you talking to him help us get through to Rory?"
"I think if I can just talk to him and know for a fact that he isn't doing this just to get her back and that he really will respect her boundaries, it will help," Luke replied. He straightened up and looked Lorelai in the eye. "It won't be like it was before. Back then, I was a dad trying to protect my kids. Now I'm just someone whose kid was kept away from him talking to someone else whose kid might be kept away from him."
Lorelai's heart surged. She reached for Luke's hand again as he offered her that small smile that was reserved for just the two of them.
"I've been through the custody thing," Luke said. "I don't want it to get that far. It's nasty and destructive and I barely kept April from seeing the worst part of it. I don't want Rory or our grandkid to be put in that position."
Lorelai remembered Luke telling her a year ago that he had always thought of Rory as being "a little bit mine."
Biological facts notwithstanding, she had always been his. He had proven that time and time again that he was the only person who was worthy of the role.
"Let me clear it with Rory before you make the call," Lorelai suggested. "I don't want her to think that we're ganging up on her."
Luke nodded. "Fair enough."
Lorelai knew she was unwise to trust it, but she actually began to believe that something resembling peace might return to this part of her life soon.
Well, before that storm from Nantucket descended on them, of course.
Three days later, Luke sat in a corner table at the diner, waiting for the bells on the door to signal the beginning of the end of this stalemate.
After weeks of avoiding the topic, Rory had been unexpectedly open to Luke sitting down and talking with Logan. Lorelai had made clear to her that Luke didn't intend to use this as an opportunity to force Logan to permanently go away - after all, he had already displayed a more forceful way of ensuring that outcome. However, she seemed more receptive to the possibility that this might actually be a way to move things past her own stubbornness (or so she claimed).
Luke was sick of it. He knew Rory was better than this. He still wasn't crazy about having to interfere in the relationship conflicts of his adult children, but things couldn't go on the way they had been. He knew that by bitter experience. The longer you let things fester, the more it became a certainty that it would blow up in your face. That had happened to him time and time again, usually because he was trying so hard to make someone happy that he neglected the other people in the equation.
Rory might not be his blood daughter, but she had certainly been around him long enough to learn this from him. Ignoring your problems didn't make them go away. Maybe if he managed to help fix this, April would be able to avoid making the same mistakes.
Logan uncertainly entered the diner and slid into the seat across from Luke. He carefully removed his jacket and placed it on the back of his chair.
"Just so you know, I'm not entirely comfortable with this," Logan stated, his eyes darting around the diner as if he were waiting to be ambushed.
"That makes two of us," Luke huffed. "Do you want any coffee?"
Logan nodded. "Black," he clarified.
Luke crossed the diner and placed one of his more spartan coffee cups in front of Logan and poured him a cup. He sat back down across from Logan.
Logan took a sip from his cup and placed it back down on the table.
"So . . ."
"So."
Luke crossed his hands over each other, feeling his patience begin to fray. "Why don't you start by telling me how the hell all of this happened?"
"Well, she won't return my calls –"
"Not that," Luke spat out. Logan cringed, and Luke reeled himself back in. "Why don't you start by telling me why you were sleeping with Rory for more than a year when you were engaged to someone else?"
Logan sighed, and nervously looked around at the other customers in the diner. No one seemed to be paying them any attention.
"Nothing's going to happen to you in here," Luke told him. "I'm not going to attack you. I just want to know why."
"Look, we tried to have a real relationship. It didn't work," Logan attempted to explain.
"It did work. I saw you. You and Rory were together for three years. You lived together. You asked her to marry you. How do you get from that to her not being good enough for you?"
"It was never that she wasn't good enough," Logan claimed, his voice rising.
"Then explain it to me."
"We were great when we were in college," Logan began. "It was afterwards that it didn't work. When we got together five years ago, we tried to do it the normal way. But we couldn't keep it together. I wanted to stay in London and Rory wanted to stay everywhere else." Logan paused and swallowed another sip from his cup. "I assume you know about that."
Luke nodded. 'Vaguely." He had picked a few things up from Lorelai at the time, but he had mostly been concerned with helping Jess restart the book press after it had gone under. Rory had been more than capable of taking care of herself at that point and his attention had been diverted to the person who needed him more.
Besides, the less he knew about his daughters's romances, the better for everyone involved. That strategy had seemed to work for everyone until recently.
Luke turned his attention back to Logan. "I still think there's something I'm missing here."
Logan sighed and bent his head down slightly. "My family wanted me to settle down. Get married, have kids. I wanted to settle down."
Luke felt his temper start to get the better of him. "You wanted to settle down?"
Logan grimaced and gripped his side of the table.
"Exactly what part of cheating on your fiancé with my stepdaughter is considered an acceptable part of settling down?"
"It wasn't like that," Logan insisted. "Odette and I had – we had an arrangement."
Luke looked at him skeptically. "An arrangement."
"As long as nothing got back to the other person, as long as there were no visible consequences – we got to do what we wanted. Until the wedding, that is." Logan let out a deep breath. "It wasn't just me. I know Rory was seeing somebody else, too."
"Paul." Luke gazed out the window. "I think they also had an arrangement."
"Rory didn't want a relationship," Logan continued as Luke turned his head to face him. "She didn't want to stay in London. She always knew what the situation was. She never –" Logan drummed his hand against the table, and lowered his voice. "She never asked for anything different."
"Did you ask?"
"I didn't think it was a possibility," Logan maintained.
"How do you know it wasn't a possibility if you didn't ask?"
"I didn't." Logan took another sip of coffee. "If she would have been open to it, I would have wanted to work things out. But I didn't think she felt like I did."
Luke briefly wondered if the communication problems he and Lorelai had faced could have been passed down to the next generation. It wasn't the first time he had thought this.
"That's neither here nor there at this point," Luke pointed out. "But it may be part of the problem."
"If Rory doesn't want a relationship right now, I'm not going to push her into one," Logan said. "But she won't talk to me at all. I just want a relationship with my kid. I just want to do what's right here."
"What about your family?"
Logan remained silent.
Luke had expected this.
"They don't know, do they?"
"No," Logan admitted. "They don't."
"You know, I don't really understand how things work in your world, Logan," Luke began. "But I don't think you can keep this kind of thing a secret. I don't really have a lot of faith in your commitment as a father if you think it's just something you can keep to the side."
"It's not –"
"I don't like where this pattern is headed," Luke continued, beginning to half suspect that Rory had been right about pushing Logan away. "Rory as the girl that you keep on the side. This kid being something that you keep on the side. How long is it before you go back to your real life, your real family –"
"I gave it up!" Logan exclaimed.
Reverend Skinner cranked his head from where he was sitting at the next table.
"It's fine," Luke assured him. The reverend turned his attention back to his meal.
Logan lowered his voice. "I didn't mean to –"
"It's okay," Luke assured him.
"What do they know around here?"
"Nobody knows anything," Luke insisted. "Rory isn't even showing yet."
That was probably a lie, but Luke made it a point not to concern himself with these things if he didn't have to.
Logan sighed and took another sip of coffee. 'If you say so."
"Look, Rory feels guilty about you leaving everything behind," Luke explained. "Maybe she's also wondering if you'll just chuck all of it and go back if it doesn't work out for you. I know I'm starting to think that."
"That's not –" Logan gripped his side of the table again. "My father isn't speaking to me. He's upset that I left the company. I didn't get a chance to explain the entire situation to him. I'm not sure what I have to explain if Rory still won't budge."
"Are you serious about leaving your father's company?" Luke asked. "Leaving London?"
"I am," Logan insisted. "I've got a job with a good company. I'm not going out on a limb like I did when I was younger. I've got an apartment in New York. I don't want to go back to London. I want my life to be here so I can be here for my kid. This isn't some sort of whim that I'm going to give up on later."
"And your fiancé?"
"She knows what happened," Logan said. "She understands this. I mean, this baby is definitely a visible consequence of being with someone else. It's over between us."
"Is that something you're going to hold against Rory?" Luke asked.
"No, " Logan insisted. "As long as Odette and I were committed to the same kind of life, it was something that could have worked out for us. But the arrangement we had – it was there for a reason." Logan looked to Luke with emphasis. "I don't want to go back to her."
The silence reverberated through the rest of the diner as Logan finished his coffee. Luke wasn't exactly sure how to respond to any of it. He was more at a loss at how to understand how Logan's side of the world worked than he had been before, and he felt that he had learned more about Rory's entangled personal circumstances to last a lifetime.
Of course, it wasn't exactly like he had room to talk when it came to conventional relationships, either.
"Is Rory some sort of escape hatch for you?" Luke asked after a moment.
"Escape hatch –"
"Are you doing this because you see this as your big chance to get away? I mean, are Rory and the baby some sort of replacement family for what you were going to have with your fiancé?"
"Does it matter?" Logan asked, his voice taking on an impatient tone.
"It does to Rory. She still thinks you're trying to pressure her into something she doesn't want."
"I know that," Logan replied. "That's not what it's about for me. I have every intention of respecting her boundaries. But I need her to meet me halfway."
Luke rose from his seat and went back behind the counter to retrieve the coffeepot. "I get that," he told Logan as he refilled his cup.
The fear seemed to momentarily drain from Logan's face.
"You met my daughter at the house," Luke continued. "April."
Logan nodded. "I know the story," he said. "I read that book Rory's friend wrote."
Luke scoffed. "My nephew doesn't always have the best discretion."
"That's your nephew – " Logan nodded, the realization dawning on his face. "I didn't put it together until now, but yeah. I see the resemblance."
"He lived with me when he and Rory were dating in high school," Luke explained. "He knows way too much about this family. I'm not supposed to let on that I know I'm in the book."
"You don't really look like a tattooed vegan chef," Logan remarked. "Rory's mother – not exactly a dead ringer for a blue haired blues singer, either."
"Look, my point is that I've been in your position," Luke replied, eager to change the subject. "I didn't meet my daughter until she was twelve years old. I didn't handle it well, and it caused a lot of problems for Lorelai and me. I want to help stop that from happening here. I don't want to put everyone through that again."
"I appreciate that," Logan said, taking a sip of coffee from his cup. "I'm kind of at an impasse of what to do next. I've tried everything."
"Well, what you can try next is to restrain yourself from acting out the next time you have a problem with the mother of your child," Luke said pointedly. "I'm going to do what I can to help you out here, but the next time you come like that at Rory or April, I will throw you out again. And that will be the last time you come near them. Do you understand me?"
Logan nodded. "Yeah."
"I'll talk to Rory," Luke said. "I think we all understand this has gone on long enough."
"If you think it will help –"
"I'm pretty sure it will," Luke said with conviction. "I think she's ready to come around."
Two days later, Luke and Lorelai sat crowded around the diner counter as the quietly observed the parents of their grandchild at the corner of the diner.
They could hear Rory chuckling and reaching out to retrieve her appointment book from her purse. Logan was grinning and jotting down notes in his phone.
"I think we may have helped to arrange a reconciliation of sorts," Lorelai remarked to Luke.
Luke grinned and leaned across the counter to kiss her.
"Sometimes we make a pretty good team," he whispered in her ear.
