A/N: It seems that whenever I end a chapter on an intense cliff hanger, I manage to produce the next one a lot quicker. Hence the speedy arrival of this one. Enjoy! I had a lot of fun writing this one.
Chapter Seven – Decaf Coffee and Non Alcoholic Beer
Rory stared out the windshield of the jeep in disbelief as the car pulled into the driveway. Logan looked up from his spot on the front porch at the sound of the approaching car.
"What's he doing here?" Rory asked her mom.
"I don't know!"
"Well, did you tell him when I was coming home?"
"No, I haven't talked to him since your graduation party."
"So how did he know?"
"Why don't you get out of the car and talk to him, hun?"
But Rory remained glued to her seat, still in shock.
Lorelai shook her head, and with a heavy sigh left her daughter sitting in the jeep. "Hi, Logan!" said Lorelai brightly as she pulled Rory's suitcase from the back of the car and proceeded to drag it into the house.
Logan stood up. "Lorelai," he replied, nodding in her direction. "How've you been?"
"Oh, you know. Some idiot knocked up my kid. Like mother, like daughter."
Logan winced.
"I think she's in shock," Lorelai continued. She'd reached the house now, and Rory still hadn't so much as unbuckled her seatbelt.
She watched as Logan glanced in Rory's direction, chuckling.
"Crap," Rory mumbled, fumbling for the buckle of her seatbelt as she stumbled out of the car. She silently willed her hear to stop beating so quickly as she approached Logan. He looked a little too gleeful for their current situation, and it was bugging her.
Rory waited until her mother had firmly closed the front door behind her, leaving the two of them standing in the front yard alone. She frowned, folding her arms across her chest.
"What are you doing here, Logan?" Rory asked, traces of anger seeping into her voice.
But her annoyance only seemed to amuse him. "Hello to you too."
"Do you think this is funny?"
His smile faded quickly. "Rory – "
"This isn't a game, Logan! You can't just show up out of the blue – "
"Whoa, Rory! Calm down for a minute." Logan took a step closer to her, reaching out his arm as if to touch her shoulder. Then, as though realizing the gesture might not be appropriate anymore, made a fist with his hand instead, and let his arm fall to his side.
"You told me that I needed to figure out what I was going to do. I kept my word. Now I'm trying to tell you what I decided."
"You can't just call like a normal person?" she snapped.
Logan sighed. "Is this how it's always going to be? Are you just going to jump down my throat at everything I say?" Noticing that his voice was escalating, Logan made a controlled effort to whisper the next part. "I didn't mean to get you pregnant, Rory. You know that. We're both at fault for that, so if you're going to keep blaming me for this – "
"I'm not blaming you!" Rory cried.
"Then what is it, Rory? Huh? Why are you so mad at me now? I came here to try and show you how I plan on being in our kid's life, as per your request. So please, do you want to clue me in on what I could have possibly done this time to piss you off? Did you change your mind since the last time we spoke? Because I don't care what you say, Rory. I'm going to be involved whether you like it or not, and I'd really prefer it if you didn't treat me like the enemy when I'm only trying to do exactly what you wanted."
Each time he called her 'Rory' felt like a knife stabbing into her gut. "No, I haven't changed my mind."
"Are you still mad that I yelled at you? I already apologized profusely for that."
"Of course not."
"Then what's the problem?"
"I don't know!" Rory exclaimed. She sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
The frustration Logan had been feeling towards Rory crumbled. He tried to remember what Tracy told him before he left Palo Alto. Tracy had reminded him that the pregnancy was going to cause Rory's hormones to go a little crazy. He had to try to be a little more understanding of her mood swings.
"Why don't we sit down," Logan suggested. Rory nodded, and lead him up the steps to the bench on the porch. They sat together in silence for a little while.
"Rory, are you okay?" Logan asked.
"You keep calling me 'Rory,'" she blurted out before she could stop herself.
Logan frowned. "What?"
"You never call me that. You always call me Ace. Even before we were dating, you always called me Ace. You only ever called me Rory when you were being serious or…or when we…when we were intimate." Rory blushed. "And now you won't even call me that. You only call me Rory."
"I…" Logan hadn't even noticed that he was doing it.
"Did I really hurt you that much?" she whispered.
"Ror – No, of course not." He hadn't stopped himself in time before using her name. The truth of it was she had hurt him. But his anger was unjustified, he saw that now.
Rory chocked out a sob. "God, I hate this already. Don't you hate this? Why can't we just be normal?"
"It's not your fault."
But Rory had already worked up a full head of steam. "I just hate this all already. I hate that you can't just call me Ace like everything's normal, because it isn't normal. Look at us. We can't get through a conversation without arguing, or without me crying. I hate that I'm going to have to tell the entire town why I'm really home soon, and they're all going to be so disappointed in me. And my grandpa is going to hate me."
"He's not going to hate you."
"And my mom is being so supportive and perfect and scheduling doctor's appointments while I'm just sitting here freaking out every five seconds, jumping down your throat for reasons I can't even figure out. And I just feel like I'm the only one freaking out about this. Why am I the only one freaking out? Shouldn't other people be freaking out too?"
"Hey, you are not the only one freaking out," Logan insisted.
She gave him a skeptical look, whipping the tears from her eyes.
"I've been having minor panic attacks on and off pretty much since the day you told me you were pregnant. But I've also been making plans and trying to figure out how I'm going to make those plans work, which helped to alleviate most of them. Bu the truth is, I don't have a clue what I'm doing."
They remained in silence for a while.
"What if I'm a terrible mother?" Rory said softly.
"Rory – "
She winced noticeably. Logan squeezed his eyes shut tightly, kicking himself inwardly for causing her more pain accidentally.
"Okay, first of all, you are not going to be a terrible mother. You are caring, incredibly organized and detail oriented, kind, hard working, smart, and loving." Not to mention incredibly beautiful, and pretty much everything I could ever hope the mother of my children would be, Logan thought. "You were the only positive influence that I ever had in my life. If you can help an underachiever like me figure out how to get his act together, then you are more than capable of raising a child of your own."
She tried not to let his kind words of encouragement effect her. "Do you really think so?"
"Of course I do." Logan wanted to remind her more than anything how much he'd wanted her to be his wife. Not only that, he'd wanted them to be a family. He still wanted that. But Rory was right about one thing: they weren't normal. Even if Logan thought there was an opening for him to make a move, it wouldn't be a good idea. Logan had learned the hard way that things can't just magically be fixed because he wanted them to be. He thought back to the fight they'd had about the bridesmaids, and how he'd tried to fix the problem by explaining his point of view and begging Rory to come home with him. It hadn't worked in the slightest. Rory had stayed mad at him, and he in response had gone off to Costa Rica without so much as a second thought, and ended up nearly killing himself when he drunkenly fell off a cliff.
Logan couldn't afford to screw this one up. He needed to be patient.
"I know that are last few conversations have been a little awkward, but we will get back to normal eventually. Okay?"
Rory nodded, although she didn't quite believe him. In order for them to be back to normal, they needed to be a couple. That was normal for them. Rory wasn't sure if she even knew how to be around Logan and not be with him. That was something she'd need to relearn.
"I moved to Connecticut," Logan finally said, interrupting Rory's thoughts.
She frowned. "What?"
"That's what I've been doing. You told me to figure things out, and I did. So I moved back to Connecticut."
Rory shook her head in disbelief. "Logan. I didn't tell you to move here."
"I know, but I had to."
"All I meant was that I wanted some kind of schedule. Like, you'd come out here at least once a month to visit or something, and you'd call every Tuesday night. Something like that. I wasn't trying to tell you that you needed to pick up your entire life."
"But that's not enough. Don't you get it, Rory? You were absolutely right about everything. Both of our fathers were never around, and I don't want that to be me. I don't want my child to always wonder where I am. And I want to do everything the complete opposite of the way my own father did things. In order to do that, I can't settle for sporadic visits and phone calls. We can't be living on opposite ends of the country. And I wasn't about to let you move to California, away from your entire family, just to make that happen. Maybe things would be different if we hadn't broken up; I don't know. But this is the way it has to be done."
Rory was having a little trouble believing what Logan was telling her.
"But your job – "
"Taken care of."
She was getting frustrated with him. "What does that mean?"
"You don't have to worry about it, Rory. I'm not going to bolt."
"But…you were so excited about that job, Logan. Are you sure – "
Logan sighed, placing a reassuring hand on her knee. "The day after you came to see me I went into the office and straight into a meeting with the other partners. I told them that, unfortunately, I had to move back home, there was no avoiding it, and so I had no choice but to leave the company. Instead, they had another idea."
Rory frowned in confusion. "I don't get it."
"Well, apparently HPG was looking into buying this new company in Hartford. But the whole thing started to fall through when the CEO and VP met with my dad. It seems they don't particularly like Mitchum too much, and are hesitant to work for him. So one of the guys that works there knows Bobbie, and he remembered her experience with HPG. They go to her for advice, and she sends them in my direction. They've been working on some kind of merger of the two companies. My dad has no idea that he's about to lose this company."
She was floored. "Are you serious?"
"Completely. My partners didn't want to say anything in case the whole deal fell through, in case it got back to my dad somehow. But it looks like this is going to work. These guys really like the fact that we're basically the complete opposite of my dad. If this merger goes smoothly, there might be even further expansions in a few years."
"So wait, where do you factor in with all this?"
"Well, we were going to send someone else out to manage the new Hartford office, but I'm going to do that instead. I handed off control of my project to someone else. These guys in Hartford need a lot of help; their web presence is a bit of a mess. Now, I might need to take business trips back to Palo Alto every couple of months, but other than that I'm not going anywhere."
Logan grinned when he finished telling Rory his story. He was very happy with how well things had worked out. Logan would have been more than willing to leave his job for Rory and the baby, but he was glad they were able to work something else out instead.
Rory, on the other hands, was hesitant. This isn't what she had expected. She wasn't quite sure of his reasoning. Was he trying to prove that he wasn't his father? Was he doing this for Rory? Or was he really just trying to do what he thought was best for everyone?
"Are you absolutely sure that this is what you want? Because once you make this decision, you can't change your mind. You can't decide that doing this whole single parenting, joint custody thing is too much for you and suddenly leave."
He felt slightly crestfallen at the mention of 'single parenting' and 'joint custody.' It was as though Rory was reminding them both of where they stood. She was Rory and he was Logan, and they were not together. But that didn't change his mind one bit
Logan smiled, genuinely smiled. He hadn't done that in a long time. "I am one hundred percent positive that this is what I want to do."
And with his reassurance, Rory felt her tension ease a bit. She wouldn't have to do this completely alone. She was still by herself, of course. But at the very least, Logan would be there to help her out as much as possible. What's more, he wanted to be there.
"I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Do you want to come?"
Logan felt himself relax a bit at her suggestion. Rory wasn't mad at him. She wasn't going to ban him from contact with his kid. Maybe they could figure this out after all.
"Of course," he told her. "I'll pick you up in the morning?"
Rory nodded in agreement. "Um. You haven't told anyone else. Have you?"
"Just Colin and Finn. Why?"
Rory's face flushed a little. "Well, I'm trying to keep this from the rest of the town and my grandparents for at least another week. So if you could just…not tell your parents yet, that would be great."
Logan frowned. "Why do they think you're home, then?"
"My mom and Luke are getting married this weekend. I'm saying that I got some time off for the wedding. It'll just make telling everyone that much easier if I happen to find out that I'm pregnant while I'm home rather than having to explain my sudden reappearance in Connecticut. Plus, it buy's me a little more time."
Logan could understand that sentiment. He wasn't exactly looking forward to telling his parents that Rory was pregnant. His father would tell him how careless and irresponsible he was, while his mother would use it as yet another occasion to bash Rory.
"I'll keep it from them for as long as I can, but they're going to find out eventually. It'll be better it comes from me rather than an outside source."
Rory nodded in agreement. "I'll let you know when it's okay to say something." Finally, she stood up from her seat, stretching her legs. "I'm glad you came, Logan. Really."
"Anytime," he replied, rising as well. He had almost called her 'Ace,' but after the conversation they'd had earlier, it almost seemed weird. Eventually he would say it again, but at least for today's purposes, he needed to keep things formal. It was important to remind himself of where they stood.
Logan reached out as if to embrace her, but then dropped his arms back to his sides. He didn't know how to say goodbye to her anymore.
"Congratulate your mom for me," he said instead. He gave her one last smile before making his way back to his car.
Logan turned around halfway there, walking backwards. "So I'll see you tomorrow then."
Rory folded her arms across her chest, unsure of what to do with them. "Okay."
She stood quietly on the front porch, watching as he got into the driver's seat, backed out of the driveway, and headed out of Stars Hollow towards the highway.
She hadn't even noticed her mother's presence at her side a minute after he'd left.
"What'd he say?" Lorelai questioned eagerly.
Rory let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Then a smile broke across her face. "He moved back to Connecticut so he could be closer to the baby."
Rory awoke the next morning to the smell of coffee drifting in from under the crack in her door. It smelled heavenly. She sniffed at the air, sighing at the smell as her brain, fuzzy with sleep, slowly pulled itself into consciousness. Then, all at once, her eyes snapped opened.
She hadn't exactly made a conscious decision to stop drinking coffee after finding out she was pregnant. Instead, she had been so stressed out and jittery that the idea of any additional stimulation was a complete turn off. But now things had changed. She still had a lot of things to worry about (such as telling her grandparents, finding an apartment, finding a job, and the whole raising a child thing) the tension she'd been feeling for the last few weeks wasn't nearly as great as it had been. Getting home and Logan had been her two biggest worries over the past couple of weeks. Now that both of those issues were resolved, her stress levels had lowered considerably. With two less things to worry about, Rory had been able to sleep through the night with very little tossing and turning.
Maybe that was why the smell of coffee suddenly sounded so appealing to her. Rory couldn't remember a day going by where she didn't drink at least one cup of the heavenly liquid. Her last detox had been when she had the stomach flu; the acidity of her beloved coffee had made her stomach angry. By the time she was finally well enough to drink the stuff again, she'd been in such a state of withdrawal that she had nearly ten cups in a row.
But this case was different. Rory was pregnant. She hadn't had a chance to do her research yet, what with being on the road, but everything Rory had ever heard told her that she wasn't supposed to have caffeine while pregnant.
Rory pulled on her bathrobe and shuffled into the kitchen to find an interesting scene. The entire kitchen table was filled with coffee. There were ceramic mugs and take away containers from Luke's. The coffee pot was filled with what looked like a freshly brewed pot. The kitchen closely resembled a café.
Lorelai practically danced her way into the kitchen. "Morning!" she sang, extracting a steaming cup from the overflowing table and taking a long sip.
Rory glared at her mother. "What's all this?"
"Weeeell, I really wanted some coffee this morning, so I ran out to Luke's and picked some up. But then, silly me, I completely forgot that I'd already made some!" Lorelai smacked her forehead, mimicking the gesture of a forgetful person.
"There's enough coffee here for a small army!" Rory exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the table.
"One can never have too much coffee, dear." With that statement, Lorelai drained her mug quickly. "Mmm. Good 'till the last drop."
Rory glared angrily at her mother. "I hate you."
Lorelai mimicked a look of shock, gasping and bringing her hand to her chest in surprise. "Whatever do you mean, my lovely daughter? Is that any way to treat your wonderful, loving mother?"
"You know I can't drink coffee!"
"Why in the world not?"
"Because – " Rory was at a loss for words. She glared at Lorelai. "You know why. Because I'm pregnant!"
"Well that's too bad." Lorelai selected another cup and took in the smell of the coffee before taking a sip. "My, this is some wonderful coffee. It's too bad you can't have some."
"Have I mentioned that I really hate you?"
Lorelai smiled an almost evil smile. "I love you too, kid!"
There was a knock at the door, causing Rory to jump.
"Crap, is that Logan already? Why didn't you wake me sooner?"
Lorelai shrugged.
"Well, I'm not even dressed yet! You have to get the door."
But Lorelai only raised her eyebrows, taking another sip of her coffee. "Hey, he didn't knock me up."
"Mom – "
There was another knock.
"You better get that, hun. Wouldn't want to keep him waiting."
Rory groaned in frustration as she shuffled towards the front door. "Mean!" she called over her shoulder, causing Lorelai to laugh heartily.
She pulled the door opened to a surprised looking Logan. He took in the sight of her in pajamas, fuzzy pink slippers, and a light blue bathrobe. He eyed her from head to toe, smirking in amusement at her appearance.
"New look for you, Ace?"
Rory opened her mouth to give him a sarcastic reply only to snap it shut again. He'd called her Ace.
"Um." The use of her old nick name had thrown her off a bit. "No. I just…slept a little late." Rory tried to keep the smile from creeping across her lips, but all she could think about was the fact that he'd called her Ace.
"Well unless you want to go to the doctor's dressed like that…" Logan eyed her up and down one more time, smirking.
Rory gave her head a quick shake, trying to clear the fog that had overcome it. "Right. Um. I'm just going to get changed. Why don't you come in?"
Logan followed her into the kitchen, stopping short at the sight of all the coffee on the table. Lorelai was seated on one of the chairs with one leg crossed over the other, sipping a mug as though she didn't have a care in the world.
"Morning, Logan!" Lorelai said cheerily.
He eyed the table warily. "Uh…what's with all the coffee?"
Rory groaned. "My mom's trying to be funny. Please ignore her while I get changed."
Logan shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other as he stood alone in the kitchen with Rory's mother. Logan wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to his ex girlfriend's mom when the last time he saw her, he was proposing to her daughter. In addition, he happened to have impregnated her daughter. It wasn't exactly an ideal situation.
"So…" Logan said awkwardly, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.
"Do you want some coffee, Logan?" Lorelai asked loudly. "I have plenty."
"Uh…"
"If you so much as drink one sip of coffee in front of me while I'm pregnant with your baby, I will make sure that this is the only offspring you ever conceive!" Rory yelled, her voice muffled by her bedroom door. "In fact, the appendage responsible for said baby will no longer be attached to your body!"
Lorelai was laughing at the threat. "I don't know why you don't just have some coffee, kid. I drank coffee all the time when I was pregnant with you, and you turned out okay. No extra limbs or anything."
"Yes, and look how well that turned out for me. You made me a caffeine addict!"
"Better a coffee addict than a cocaine addict. Lindsay Lohan got arrested for a DUI in May, is that what you want?"
"You're impossible!"
Lorelai giggled to herself, leaving them in silence again. Logan felt like he should say something, but what was there to say. That he was sorry? That didn't seem right. He was sorry that it had come to this, but apologizing didn't feel right. "Lorelai, I – "
"You don't have to say anything," she cut him off, her tone completely serious.
Logan nodded.
"No one understands more than me what it's like to have your world turned upside down by a pregnancy," Lorelai continued. "So I'm finding it really hard to hate you for something that I've done myself."
"If it's any consolation, I never wanted this to happen to her either. We did everything we could to prevent this."
"What matters is that you're doing the right thing here. You're not going to leave her to deal with this all on her own."
"I would never do that," Logan told her, all sincerity in his voice.
Lorelai looked like she believed him. "Look. I'm not exactly thrilled about this. But Rory's my baby, and I will do everything I can to help her. So as long as you continue to do the right thing, I'll try my best to fend off the vultures."
Logan frowned in confusion. "Vultures?"
"You know. My parents. Your parents."
"Oh right, those vultures."
Rory stepped out of her room wearing jeans and a nice shirt. She opened her mouth as though to say something, promptly closed it again, and held up a finger.
"Excuse me for one second," she told them, and proceeded to walk down the hall until Logan heard the click of a door closing.
"I'd go take care of that if I were you," Lorelai suggested as she finished her mug and placed it in the sink. When Logan continued to look confused, Lorelai continued. "Morning sickness. Welcome to pre parenthood, kid."
"I can't do this, Logan!"
They were in the car, on their way to the doctor's office, when Rory had suddenly blurted out the thought that had been running through her mind all morning.
Logan started to reach a hand across the center console to place it reassuringly on her knee, only to think better of his action and place it instead on the gear shift.
"Rory, we talked about this. You're going to be a great mom."
"No, not that. I can't go the next nine months without drinking any coffee!"
Logan chuckled.
"I'm being serious, Logan! Do you know how hard it is for me to go that long without coffee? I love coffee!"
"I know you love coffee, Ace." He was still laughing at her outburst.
"No, you don't understand. I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't drinking coffee. For my sixteenth birthday, Luke made me a coffee cake and left it on a table at the diner that morning. When I went back to Yale and you were waiting for me at the coffee cart after the breakup mishap, I had a panic attack because I thought I'd have to stop drinking coffee! I need coffee, Logan!"
"So switch to decaf."
Rory laughed. "Switch to decaf? Are you crazy? That's like if I asked you to only drink non alcoholic beer. What's the point?"
Logan didn't think there was a safe answer to this question. Luckily, Rory didn't seem to be looking for one.
"I should just drink the coffee. My mom drank coffee when she was pregnant with me and I turned out okay, right?"
"Yes." Logan found it better to agree with her.
"But what if I'm the exception to the rule? What if, say, one in 5 women who drink coffee while pregnant produce normal babies, while the rest had babies with an extra toe or something! I don't want a baby with an extra toe!"
"I really don't think that's what will happen if you drink coffee, Ace."
"But how do you know? What if they just haven't produced an official study yet linking extra toes to caffeine intake during pregnancy? Maybe they're still doing the research!"
She was talking so fast that she was hardly taking time to catch her breath.
Suddenly, a new worry occurred to Rory.
"Oh my god! I haven't done any research yet. I don't know the first thing about pregnancy! I don't know what food's I'm supposed to eat. Aren't pregnant women supposed to take special vitamins or something? What if the baby hasn't been getting the right nutrients? I could have screwed up the baby!"
"Rory – " She was starting to enter full on panic attack.
"Oh my god! I just realized…I had champagne at my graduation party! And at graduation! I had to have been pregnant at that point. And I know that you're not supposed to drink alcohol when you're pregnant."
"Ace!" Logan exclaimed with a laugh. "I'm sure that everything's fine. You can ask the doctor yourself when we get there. As for the research…"
As they pulled up to a stop light, Logan reached across to the passenger's seat and popped opened the glove compartment. A think book fell out, tumbling to the floor.
She picked it up, reading the title out loud. "What To Expect When You're Expecting."
"My secretary gave it to me. I read quite a lot of it on the flight back home. Consider it your first of the many books I'm sure you will buy."
Rory felt her heart clench in her chest. Logan had a pregnancy book. He was doing research.
She wanted so much to lean over the center console and kiss him. But they weren't together anymore. It was kind of ironic, really. They'd broken up because Rory wasn't ready to get married and Logan wanted an even bigger commitment only for her to discover that she was pregnant, linking them together for the rest of their lives, whether they liked it or not. It would have been different if she wasn't pregnant. They'd both be able to live the separate lives they'd agreed to. And now, because of those actions, they were living separate lives parallel to each other.
Alanis Morissette knew nothing of irony.
How long could she do it? Could she really not be with him for the rest of her life when he would always be right there? She didn't know if she could. Logan was being so sweet and caring. He'd moved across the country for the baby, and when she got sick that morning he'd followed her into the bathroom and stroked her hair, rubbing soothing circles into her back. He'd let her freak out and panic, taking in all of her crazy outbursts. She could only imagine the millions of other things that he would no doubt do for her throughout the next nine months. How in the world was she supposed to do this with him without being with him?
It would be so much easier if she could just tell him that she was, in fact, ready to get married. But she wasn't. Even though her main reason for turning him down had become a mote point, the idea of marriage itself still terrified her. She didn't feel ready for it, nor did she feel ready to be a mother.
Then there were her fears about Logan. He could have moved on by now. It was a possibility she needed to consider. After all, he was so ready to walk away when she'd said no. Maybe her rejection had been the catalyst, one which caused him to immediately begin moving on. Then, suddenly, Rory became terrified of the thought of seeing him with another woman. She didn't know if she could handle watching him fall in love with someone else, not when her child shared his DNA.
She started crying before she even realized it, and once she did it became a full on sob.
Logan glanced over at the sound of her sobs. Then, as realization hit him, he quickly pulled the car over to the side of the road.
"Rory, what's wrong?" he asked her with concern. This only caused her to sob harder. Logan unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car, walking around to the passenger's side. He opened her door and crouched down next to her, gathering her into his arms.
"Tell me what's wrong," Logan said again when her breathing was finally under control.
She couldn't tell him the real reason for her freak out; it was too much. So she tried to explain it to him in another way.
"Do you ever get the feeling that the last couple of months just aren't real? The proposal, the break up, you moving to California, me getting a job following Barak Obama, the pregnancy, and then both of us right back here in Connecticut? I just feel like…like I don't have any control over anything anymore. And I'm trying to figure out what I want in order to get everything back under control, but now there are all these other outside factors I have to consider, and it's all too much. Every time I solve one problem, it's like another three pop up out of nowhere. And I don't know if I can handle it."
He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. He wasn't sure exactly what she was talking about, but he did know how to answer her. "Well then, I will do everything I can to help you figure out how to solve them."
Rory sighed. "That's just it. You can't help me figure everything out. Some things I need to do on my own."
"Such as?"
"Like…" What was Rory supposed to say? "Like the fact that you're my ex boyfriend, but you're still in my life, and always will be."
It would have been so easy to just tell her that he didn't have to be her ex boyfriend, not if she didn't want him to be. But Logan knew that it wasn't a good idea. The many reminders she'd given him that they were no longer together, and of the prospect of single parenthood and joint custody was more than enough of an indication for him. Her plans for the future did not involve him.
"Kind of like how the ex girlfriend that I proposed to turned me down only for me to find out that she's pregnant after we split up."
Rory's eyes widened in horror. "Logan, I didn't mean – "
"I'm sorry it's so hard for you to be around me," he said flatly.
She wanted to cry again, but was afraid to do so in front of him. "How about…let's not discuss the state of our relationship at least for the foreseeable future. I think we just both need a little space from the issue. So from now on, no more talking about how we were, the break up, or how we're supposed to act around each other now. Then maybe, in a couple of months when it's all not so fresh, we can revisit the subject if need be. For now, let's just focus on the baby, and figuring out how we're going to handle that. Okay?"
Logan nodded I agreement. It was probably a good idea. He needed to stop dwelling so much on his feelings for Rory and trying to figure out how to get her back, because that might not happen. He was stuck with her in his life for good now. Most of their arguments lately revolved around the way their relationship had ended, which was doing nothing to help get them back to a state of normalcy. And he didn't want to fight with her anymore.
With a sigh, he went back around to the driver's side of his car, pulling back onto the road to drive the rest of the way to the doctor's office.
A/N: I actually ended up spending hours researching ultrasounds and prenatal visits and only to end up pushing the doctor's visit off to the next chapter because this one was getting too long. However, I'm sure that all the Rory and Logan interaction will have made up for it.
