Trial of Error

Chapter Eleven: Formal Offers

Description: Set just after Will You Be My Lorelai Gilmore? Logan heads off to Vegas with Colin and Finn, but Rory doesn't let it just pass without having her say. Unfortunately for Rory, what happens in Vegas isn't going to stay in Vegas.

Ship: Rogan

Rating: T

"You have everything?"

Logan had been double checking his own personal items to make sure they were securely stowed in his carry-on luggage or in his inner jacket pocket. He had also nearly paced a path in the floor of their small apartment in the process. She sat cross-legged on the bed with her bag unzipped next to her, needing only an extra book to be added before she was finished packing. She was too busy watching him to head to the bookshelves.

"If we forget anything, they do have stores in California."

"Last I checked, that is correct."

"Good. Because if there are no stores in California, that might be a reason to not move there," she joked, but he didn't catch her attempt at humor. Her brow furrowed and she reached out a hand to him. "Come sit with me for a minute."

With a resigned sigh, he did as she asked, and she rubbed her hand over his back lightly. "I'm fine," he said, but he'd said it so many times at that point it was no gage of his true feelings.

"You know it's okay to not be fine, right? Because what's happening with your family isn't fine, but that doesn't mean we can't work together to make it better."

He looked at her with the same burden she'd seen since their last meeting with his father. "I'll pay him back, and we'll be done with him, it will just take longer than I anticipated. We don't need to talk about it, because there is no other solution."

She pressed her teeth into her lower lip. "I know you feel like you have to shoulder the load of this on your own, but you're not alone in this."

"I don't want you to suffer for my mistakes," he said. "Let's just go to California, I'll have my meeting and we'll have a honeymoon preview."

"Honeymoon preview?"

"Two days in wine country, enjoying the stars and a hot tub."

"Sounds like a real honeymoon," she said.

He shook his head. "It's just two days. I want to take you on an epic adventure, after school's out and we have the time to travel."

"That sounds amazing, but how are we going to do that, really, if all our money is going to your dad?" she asked gently, as if to remind him that his lifestyle was going to have to change.

"Let him sue me. You deserve a proper honeymoon."

"Logan," she began with reproach.

He didn't want to hear her reasoning and logic. "I need to quit thinking about it for a couple of days."

"I understand that, but it's just, I was talking to Honor about it."

He grimaced. "Oh, God."

She pressed on regardless of his mental anguish. "And she had an idea."

He groaned and closed his eyes. "Oh, very, very bad."

Her mouth dropped at his continued negative vocalization. "You haven't heard the idea."

He shuddered. "It doesn't matter; I've never heard an idea of Honor's that has ever been awe-inspiring, especially when it involves my life."

"It doesn't have anything to do with you working for your father," she said, trying to get him to at least hear her out.

"Why were you even talking to Honor about this at all?" he asked.

"For starters, I was worried about you, and so was she. She's family, and she loves you."

He snorted. "The same is technically true of my parents, and look how well that works for me."

"And I thought I might be able to talk her into taking over your position at the company, to succeed your father."

"Rory, no. I told you before, that was never going to happen," he groaned into his hands.

"Logan, I couldn't just watch this happen and not try something. I want to help you. But you're right, she has no interest in taking over. However she did have a suggestion that might work better, for everyone."

He held back his groan, but not his look of disdain. "I'm not going to want to hear this at all, am I?"

She knew he wasn't going to want to hear it, let alone agree to it, but it was all she had at the moment. "Honor pointed out that given the wording and the way the legacy of your children will be decided, it might be an easier sell to have me step in, given that our marriage would lead to your kids being my kids."

His mouth opened in protest, but closed into a grim line. He squeezed his eyes shut and stood up. "This. This is exactly what I didn't want."

She stared up at him in concern. "What?"

His gaze softened as his eyes met hers. "They're trying to pull you in, to put it on you. All of that is my past, not my future."

"And it can be that way, no matter what. It won't fall to you."

"By letting you be a martyr?" he supplied.

"It's another option. My career path was never set in some kind of stone. I want to make a difference in the world of journalism. This would let me do that."

"You want to be a journalist. You want to be out there, getting stories and telling them. You don't want to be in budget meetings and focus groups and stuck behind a desk."

"What if I did?"

"What?"

"What if I did want that? What if the idea of taking over for your father wasn't the most abhorrent concept in the whole world to me?"

He stared at her, disbelief an understatement for the enormity of his emotion. "Is this you playing the devil's advocate, or are you serious right now?"

"I'm not saying that it's my dream, but it would solve a lot of problems for us. You could take your time to find what you love, and I'd have a solid plan for the next few years, and we could be based on the East Coast, and we wouldn't start out our marriage drowning in debt."

"It's not a few years, it's your life! And I don't want you to ever accept a job to satisfy any of those conditions," he informed her. "Promise me that."

"I won't promise you that. We're married, and if we're going to stay married, then I have to make decisions with you at the top of my considering factors list. If you're saying you don't want me to do that, then I need to know that now. Besides, we don't even know if your father would agree to let me take your place."

He stepped back to the bed and sat down. "I don't want you to have to settle for less that you deserve, especially because of me. Of course you're right, that we have to factor each other into all our decisions from here on out, but it's not easy for me to think of you giving something up, something as important as your career, for me. And as for my father, he would be a fool to pass up the option to trade up from me to you."

She scoffed. "No one is saying it's a trade-up. He wants you; he'd have to settle for me."

"He wants me because I was supposed to want to be just like him, but I never did. I was the great disappointment of the Huntzberger dynasty. You are everything he wanted in a child and more. You're driven and accomplished and interested in all the things that he values."

She squirmed. "I don't like the idea that I'm living up to his standards. It makes me feel kind of slimy."

He squeezed her hand. "Then this offer never goes out to him. We drop it here and now."

"I think it's still something we have to consider, for more than ten minutes," she argued.

"If it's what you really, truly want, even knowing how much I don't want it for you, and how it's not on you to fix all that is wrong with my family, then I will support that decision."

"I don't know for sure that it's what I really, truly want. At least, not without more serious contemplation."

He nodded. "Then we shelve it. We get on a plane, we go to California. We meet with some people, we have some wine, and we enjoy each other for a couple of days. All this will be waiting for us when we get back."

"Our tiny apartment, my impending finals, and our crazy families."

He leaned his forehead to hers. "I kind of like our tiny apartment."

She smiled. "Me too. Close quarters are cozy."

"They lead to us being late occasionally."

Her hand was already undoing his top buttons. "Is there a later flight?"

"There's always the red-eye," he replied with his lips already landing at their intended destination.

-X-

The water rolled and broke at the surface, but despite the turmoil above, she was content and relaxed in the hot tub, with a glass of wine in arm's length and the night sky open above her. She'd pulled her hair back to keep it out of the chemically treated water, and was currently using her bun as a pillow along the edge as she stared up at the sky full of constellations.

Logan shut the terrace door and put a freshly opened bottle of wine on the table. He eased in next to her and assumed a similar position. "Sold on California yet?"

"We have stars and wine in Connecticut."

"It's a different view. And you have to admit the wine is good."

"I know nothing about wine, but it is nice."

"You want to hear about my meeting?" he asked.

She blew out a breath, the last bit of stress leaving her body. "I can only assume it went well. You've been on the phone since you got back."

He eased over to her, his legs sliding under hers in the water. "Are you feeling neglected?"

She tried to assuage her giggles as his hands tickled her thighs while pulling her into his lap. "At the moment? More like invaded. Hey, don't spill my wine!" she chastised.

"Protective of the wine, are you? I told you it was good."

"Forget the wine. Tell me everything," she demanded, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and enjoying the feeling of the rolling water and his body both caressing her skin.

"It felt like a fit. I met the guys behind the whole thing, and they told me about taking it from a crazy idea to a physical being, and then where it got to the point that they realized if they took it further on their own, they'd tank—so they started looking for people with experience in key areas."

"People like you," she chimed in.

"People like me. So we're having this meeting, but we're already brainstorming and I can see it, you know? Suddenly they're taking me on a tour of the offices and explaining their vision for the next five years, and I was excited."

"What's their offer?" she asked quietly.

He lifted his hand from the water and smoothed back wet tendrils from her cheek. "The salary won't be much at first, but the timing is everything. I'd be getting in at the beginning, which means they're offering crazy shares of stock, along with heavy input into the direction of the product. When the IPO hits, it would be like winning the lottery."

"But you don't even care about winning the lottery. You're excited, you love the whole package."

"I'm that transparent, huh?"

"I've seen you after meetings and interviews. I wish you were ever that happy to see me," she teased.

He kissed her, taking his time to fulfill her wish. "I am always that happy to see you."

"California, huh?" she asked hesitantly.

"Only if we want it. It's a viable option," he said. "As of about fifteen minutes ago, when they got the okay from their accountant to approve the financial end of my offer."

"They don't want a buy-in?" she asked.

He shook his head. "They have plenty of investors; they don't want me for my money. That was never part of the deal."

She nodded. "It's just such a departure. We'd be leaving everything behind."

"I know that will be hard on you, and it will limit your job search. But it's liberating to me."

She rested her head into his shoulder. "How long do you have, to make the decision?"

"They want an answer by a week from Monday," he revealed. "I know it's not a lot of time."

"A week from Monday," she repeated, taking it in. "We'll be back home."

"It feels good, breathing different air, being away from everything that's back there."

"But we can't move here to run away from our problems," she said, still uneasy about the idea of the move.

"I'm not trying to run away from anything," he countered, a slight edge to his voice.

"It just feels convenient, that the minute you walk away from your dad, you want to move three thousand miles away from home."

"I want us to start fresh. If it's far from my father, so be it. You are the same woman that plotted his demise for a time, are you not?"

"That was a long time ago," she said. "And justified."

"Damn straight it was justified. What I don't understand is how you could have even considered taking over for him, in any universe. You do realize that would mean spending at least five years working as his shadow, before you were ever even allowed to take a meeting on your own or make even the smallest decision, don't you?"

"I didn't say I would love every minute of it; I was saying it was an option to get us out of the legal mess we're in."

"The legal mess I'm in. You're not caught up in it, and I don't understand why you insist on trying to get tangled up in it at every turn."

"I'm your wife! What affects you, affects me! And not just since we got married, Logan, it's always hurt me to see you have to deal with him, and how miserable it made you. When you get hurt, I get hurt, that's just how it is."

He was quiet for some time after that. "I'm sorry."

She blinked some spray from her eyes. "Me too."

"I don't want to fight about old stuff. I want good things for us. I want to move on, that's all."

"I know. I want that too."

"So we'll consider California?" he asked in earnest.

She nodded in agreement. "We'll consider California."

He raised his glass up, waiting for her to do the same.

-X-

Rory exited her classroom, enjoying the post-class haze of euphoria that filling her brain provided her. Her lecture time was drawing short, as finals approached, her last round before entering the private sector and leaving the hallowed halls of Yale behind. It would be the end of an era, her formal schooling, and she was relishing in every last minute of what remained.

"Good lecture?"

She jumped in lieu of taking her next step, clutching her books tighter to her chest. "You scared me."

"I apologize. That wasn't my intent. You seemed pleased, as though your mind were somewhere else. I know you enjoy your studies."

Rory eyed Mitchum with as much trust as he inspired. "I do enjoy my studies."

"I meant that as a compliment."

"I guessed. Why are you here, exactly?"

He smiled. "I have a lot of old friends on campus. People like to keep in touch when you donate as generously as our family does."

Our family, it struck her, wasn't just a term he used in reference to his nuclear family, but it now extended to her as well. The reminder made her more than a little uncomfortable, and she was suddenly hyper-aware of the rings she wore on her left hand. "Makes sense, I suppose."

"I thought since I was here, I should look in on you. I didn't want you to feel I was ignoring you."

"That's nice, but not necessary. I know you're busy."

"As are you. How was California?"

She cringed. "Did you speak with Logan?"

"I find that it's difficult to get my son on the phone, or any other place where he has to talk to me."

"It was fine."

Mitchum chuckled. "Did he tell you to be vague with me?"

"He's offered many helpful suggestions on how to deal with various members of his family, in fact, but his preferred method is avoidance."

"Are you avoiding me?"

"No, I was just in class."

"I wouldn't fault you, after our last meeting."

"I was told that I had little if nothing to do with what happened at our last meeting."

"It can mean as much to you as you wish, I guess," he provided, proving his own ability to be vague.

"What does that mean?"

"That means I would like to buy you coffee and have a talk, if you have the time."

"I…," she began, but failed to complete a coherent thought, let alone a sentence.

"Do you have time?" he asked, sticking to simple, yes-or-no questions as she appeared to be on the verge of short-circuiting.

She nodded. "I suppose. A little. I have dinner plans."

"My son won't starve if he's kept waiting for a little while."

"It's, uh, not with Logan."

Mitchum tipped his chin. "I didn't come to pry into your personal life."

"It's not that," she offered quickly, her cheeks flushing rapidly.

"I don't need to know."

"I'm having dinner with my mom. Logan's having a boys' night, with Colin and Finn."

"Yes, Frick and Frack. I remember them; they starred in most every incident that involved major damage to my personal property."

"They're harmless, for the most part. Well, that's not true. But they do scare easily," she added as an afterthought.

Mitchum laughed. "I would like it very much if we could start over, you and me."

She paused in thought. "I have time for coffee."

"Excellent. Where are we on starting over?"

"I agreed to coffee, because I always agree to coffee. It's some kind of innate programming on my mother's part, I suppose. As for everything else," she said, ending with a sigh. "It's a lot of territory to cover in the course of a cup of coffee."

"I understand it can be hard to forgive and forget. I myself don't bother with all that, because I don't deal in the past. I exist in the moment and beyond. I'm too busy for anything else."

"I don't hold a grudge. If nothing else, we're family now, and family is often complicated."

"You and I are a lot alike. We think alike. Our work ethic is similar. Perhaps we have more in common than we knew, and as you pointed out we are now family."

"I'm not trying to gain a familiarity I haven't earned. I realize I'm a new addition and my place in your family isn't well-defined."

"On the contrary. Your place is very clearly defined," he argued.

"By lawyers, perhaps, but in so far as how normal people define family, not really."

"And how, pray tell, do normal people define family?"

She tossed her hand in the air languidly. "The usual ways. Who gets called first in the event of good news. Who sits where at the Thanksgiving table. Who gets called first in the event of bad news. Who shows up to help without being asked."

"You find me and my family abnormal?" he garnered.

"I just can't imagine you calling my cell phone with any news, good or bad."

"Funny, I was just thinking you might actually answer when I called, unlike my biological children."

"Is this a joke?" she asked.

"On the contrary. I was speaking with Honor last night, at some awful benefit Shira was in charge of, and she was telling me about the meeting the two of you had, on Logan's behalf."

All the color ran from her face, leaving her as pale as she was suddenly nauseated. "Oh, God."

"My children almost never divulge personal information on their own behalf, but I do find them willing to throw tidbits about the other at me, by way of distracting me from any personal attacks they imagine I have in store for them."

"What happened to care and concern about the other's well-being?"

He smiled again, making him appear rather wolfish. "It's not how they were raised."

"They care about each other."

"They do. But not more than they care about themselves."

"I never intended for Honor to discuss the matter with you. Logan has made it clear that he will decide how best to sort out his legal obligations to your company on his own."

"Logan now has an obligation to someone other than himself. If he hasn't learned that yet, he would be wise to learn it swiftly."

"I offered him my advice, but it's his decision to make."

"But what if it weren't?" Mitchum mused.

"What does that mean?" she asked warily.

"What if I extended an offer to you, separate from his dealing with my company?"

"In order to assuage any debt he has with you?"

"Let's not take all the fun out of negotiations, shall we?"

Rory shook her head. "I think this is a pointless conversation."

"Because you don't want to consider it as an option, or because Logan doesn't want you to? You did talk it over with him, didn't you? Because for whatever faults your relationship might have, you do seem to communicate well."

"We're both writers," she said, offering the best reason she could think for the success.

"You're offering labels that are incomplete. You both have talent for writing, but his passion is in venture capital and start-ups. You have a penchant for managing, editing, and all the other necessary evils that fall under the publishing umbrella."

"You seem to have changed your estimation of me."

"Not recently. And to be fair, I was trying to do you a favor."

"Some favor," she bit back.

"You know what a normal welcome is for a woman marrying a Huntzberger heir? It damn well isn't meeting for coffee with her new father-in-law to discuss business."

Rory was silent for a moment, taking in the uncharted territory that they were both in. "Maybe we should talk more."

"Maybe we should."

-X-

Lorelai was silent for a full minute after Rory finished speaking. Rory stared at her with concern and anticipation, awaiting her response.

"Say something," she prompted at last.

"I'm working on it. This is…," Lorelai began fruitlessly.

"It's so bizarre."

"Very bizarre. I'm feeling very Twilight Zone-y. Were you expecting him to peel back the skin on his face and reveal an alien creature while you drank your latte?"

"It wasn't quite that bizarre."

"I think I failed in schooling you in judging bizarre behavior. You might have been over-exposed, thus creating a sort of immunity to it."

"As my mother you are to blame for all my problems, so I won't argue with you."

"Just wait, it's easy to blame your mother now, but when you have kids, it's a whole different ballgame."

"You blame Grandma less for your problems since having me?"

"Well, no. Actually, I blame her more now."

Rory raised her eyebrows to further emphasize her point. "Well, I wouldn't plan on having grandkids for a while. Especially if I consider taking Mitchum's offer."

"Except you won't, will you?"

Rory pressed her fingers to her temples, as if trying to hold her head together. "I know I shouldn't. I know there's a version of myself that would kick my own butt for even giving it a second's thought; not to mention what Logan will say."

"I can't help with your issues with the time-space continuum, but surely Logan would understand why you'd do it. If you did do it, which I still don't think you will."

"It was just so weird. I've seen Mitchum Huntzberger drop his act and give a little, but he was talking to me like I was a real person, and not only that, but someone he wanted to have in his corner as a partner. He was almost humble."

Lorelai shook her head. "Nope, still can't envision it. You didn't accidentally catch the whole thing on your phone, did you?"

"Was I illegally recording the conversation, you mean?" Rory asked.

"Not illegally, accidentally. I do things with my phone without intention all the time. Just yesterday, I called Sookie from my pocket, and she listened to me flirt with Joe to get free cheesy bread for twenty minutes. I had no idea, until I found her on my porch, waiting for me to get home with my pizza because she got so hungry for cheesy bread during the call. I thought she was psychic."

Rory paused. "Right. My phone was off. I had just come out of class."

"I'm pretty sure you're the only college kid that turns their phones all the way off during class."

"It's common decency, not to mention in the student code of conduct."

"Which you've had memorized since you signed your acceptance."

"If there's a real emergency, everyone in my circle knows where I am."

"Like I'd ever interrupt you in class. I still remember the stink eye you gave me when I volunteered in your kindergarten class and talked to you during Show and Tell."

Rory barely heard her mother, what with the back and forth going on in her head. "Wouldn't it be wrong to turn down a position like this because of past prejudice?"

Lorelai blew out a breath. "Yes, but you have to remember that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior for a reason. People can change, when motivated, but for the most part people are who they are. And do you trust him to follow through with this all now, or do you think that he's trying to get Logan to reconsider by waving this carrot in front of your nose for a little while?"

Rory heard her mother loud and clear on that point. "I hadn't thought of that."

"I'm not saying that you don't deserve to be in charge of hundreds of newspapers, or that you wouldn't wipe the board with Logan if given the chance, but does he want you for you or does he want you because of who you married? Assuming that he does want you and he's not using you as bait."

"Well," Rory began.

"And, even if Logan says he's okay with it all, will he really be happy when he realizes that he's essentially married to a woman who is becoming a clone of his father, with whom he has major daddy issues?"

"What are you, a psychiatrist?" Rory yelped as her mother jumped from offering helpful points to pilling on too much at once.

"No, but I would make a damn fine bartender," Lorelai offered with a small grin. "Sorry. Maybe you're not ready for the deep analysis yet."

"I need to talk to Logan. He can always tell what his father's motivation is. Even when I think he's just being paranoid and erring on the dark side, he's right about him. He's all excited about California. This is just all coming together at once, and not in a good way."

"He got an offer?" Lorelai asked, obviously crestfallen.

"Yeah. He has a week to give them an answer, but even though he says he needs time to decide, I know he's just trying to give me time to get on board before he says he wants it."

"He sounds like a pretty good husband. I mean, I know he really hasn't had time to screw up yet, but still."

"Well, he is out with Colin and Finn tonight, so you never know."

"You let him go out with those two? Are you crazy?"

"It was my idea!"

"You are crazy."

"He hadn't seen them much lately, I have a lot of reading to do tonight, and our apartment is really tiny. Do you know how difficult it is to read three hundred pages on ethics in journalism with Logan in constant line of sight?"

"Isn't it early in a marriage to be shamelessly getting rid of your husband?"

"I stand by my methods. I'm not done with school yet, and I haven't had a job offer that doesn't involve deciphering the kind of mental games that would make cryptographers weep, and really everyone wins. He gets to play with his friends and I get to read my book."

"Well played, grasshopper."

"Maybe neither option will work out," she said nervously.

"Just talk to Logan. There's nothing wrong with both of you getting your dreams handed to you—except the fact that they totally clash. You just have to find the compromise, for what works for you both. No one said it would be easy, being married."

"I know. I just hope it's not impossible."