FF- Not Everything is About You

Four months after Germany, Rory sat at her desk, head in her hands as she reviewed the latest issue of the newspaper that was set to go out. With one final approval she sent it over to Logan's email to make sure he was good with the changes that she had made. Normally they would work together on it, but it had been two weeks of him acting strange, today being the strangest of them all. His door had been closed all day, even if there were no meetings on the calendar. He hadn't answered her message about lunch and when she knocked his voice, that usually sounded calm, even and relaxed, sounded tense, she could only remember a few times he had ever been curt with her. Almost all of them were before they had made themselves a couple. Sure, there were arguments, but over the past few weeks he had been quiet and distant.

Anytime he was home he was holed up in their study, coming to bed hours after she would, leaving before she got out of bed, and they had run through the wet bar at a pace even Finn would marvel at. There had been so many nights where she would hear him come into their room and he would pass out on his side of the bed, no goodnight kiss, no wrapping his arm around her waist, no acknowledgement of them. They still went to work together, they still left together, and he would still make her smile when he would send her a small smirk or a light kiss to her forehead but for someone like Logan, who always seemed to have one hand on her at any given moment, or who was just as intimate as she was there was a strange undercurrent to their once stable and loving relationship, and the strangest part was that he wasn't talking to her. He had completely shut her out. Something that neither one of them had done since his senior year at Yale, since the one big blow up they had.

When she dwelled so much on this divide, she felt the chill course through her veins. She had never understood what it meant when people would talk about their blood running cold, she knew fear, she knew abandonment, but she didn't quite understand this feeling of rejection. But every time he would get in bed and mumble a small good night, every time he would cut her kisses short, or shut the study door she could feel this tingly sensation under her skin, like someone put ice water in an IV and pumped it directly through her heart. She hated this, she hated that he had this power over her, she hated that her best friend was shutting her out. Her thoughts were broken by the sound of her cell phone ringing shrilly.

"Hello?"

"Hello love."

"Hey Finn. How are you buddy?" Rory was happy to hear a familiar voice, even if it wasn't the voice she was hoping for.

"Well, I just want to know what you and my boy are up to. I've been trying to reach him for 3 days and he hasn't been answering." He had tried to keep the hurt out of his voice, but it was there, and Rory knew that the second she would start talking about Logan her voice would show the strain as well.

"I'm sorry Finn. I'd like to say we ran off and joined a cult but unfortunately your boy has just been incredibly busy with work."

"Oh, really? Hmm. Usually he answers me. What is going on with work?"

"I'm… I'm not sure. He hasn't let me know."

"How long has he been this busy?" Finn asked, hearing how her voice was cracking in a way he wasn't used to, especially when discussing Logan.

"I don't know, about two weeks." She shrugged not thinking about the fact that he couldn't see her.

"I'm sorry Love. I'm sure it's nothing."

"I know, it's just he's not usually like this. And I should be thankful that overall, he's so great, but Finn he's shutting me out, he's drinking more and he's short. He doesn't hide things from me, he doesn't just not answer your calls, I don't know. I'm just not used to this Lo—" Just then Logan appeared in her doorway. "Sorry bud, I have to let you go. I'll talk to you later."

"Keep me updated."

"I will." She answered absentmindedly as she stared at the topic of the conversation. She couldn't help but see the anger in his face as she started packing her desk up.

"Ready to go?" He asked her with a fake niceness sewn through his voice.

"Um, yeah." She bit her bottom lip as she made her way out of the office. "Did you see the final edits I did?"

"Yeah, I approved them and sent them off." He said as they stepped into an elevator, once the doors closed, he spoke again. "And then after I did that, I came to your office to surprise you to take you out to dinner, only to discover my loving wife talking about me behind my back."

Rory sighed as she rolled her eyes at his anger, of course the first time they discuss any of this bullshit he has some kind of upper hand. "Logan, we are in our office, I am not having this discussion with you."

"We are in the elevator Rory."

"Even more reason to wait until we get home, unless the moment we get home you're going to go off and hide in your study and treat me as a god damn roommate instead of your wife, then maybe we should just have it out here. Lord knows this is the first time I've had your attention in weeks." She saw the angry mask crumble for a minute and give way to guilt.

"You're right, I'm sorry. There have been some fires I've had to put out and—" Just then Rory's cell phone rang, and it reminded Logan of what had caused his anger with her in the first place. Once she saw the anger cross over his features again, she sighed.

"Go ahead, answer it. Or, do you need me to not be around so you can tell whoever you're running off with about how horrible I am?" Logan whispered out to her with an angry tone to his voice. They both watched the elevator doors open and they quickly made their way through the garage to their car, as soon as they were both situated, they both turned to each other with a fighting stance.

"You think I'm running off with someone you god damn imbecile?" She asked with an angry tone.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? I walk into my wife's office hearing her talk about how much I'm drinking, how I'm shutting you out, how horrible I am."

"Well… it's not exactly wrong is it?!"

"Excuse me!?"

"Logan, what the hell has been going on? For the past two weeks if we're in the same place, we're still not. You're a million miles away, you have been shutting me out and I don't understand what the hell I did. And as for the running out on you, do you know who I was speaking to?" When he just glared at her with his chest rising and falling quickly, she continued. "It was Finn, and the reason he called me?" She was going to continue before he got mad again.

"Finn?! Great, so my best friend and my wife."

"Fuck you Logan. Give me a minute. Finn called me because he had been trying to get ahold of you! Because apparently, I'm not the only one you've been shutting out of your life. Except, I thought our lives were combined but apparently not." Her phone started ringing again before she hit the ignore call button. "So, want to keep accusing me of being a cheater? Or your best friend? Want to keep shutting me out?"

"This isn't about you Rory. Not everything is about you." He knew he was just being stubborn, he knew he was transferring all of his stress onto her and he watched her face fall when he said it before she schooled herself again.

"Fine. Screw you. Take me home." They spent the rest of the car ride in silence, but Rory could still see him starting to open his mouth to say something before stopping himself every few moments. She could see the anger leave him, but the stress remained as he drove. Once they pulled into their parking garage at home, she finally turned to him. "Logan, what is going on? And don't say nothing. I've given you two weeks of this hell. I've given you time, I've kept my mouth shut around you. Today was the first time I spoke to anyone about what has been going on besides my therapist and the only reason I spoke to Finn is because he called me first. So now, especially after you accused me of cheating, I deserve an answer."

Logan nodded silently as he tentatively reached for her hand. "Let's go into the office, okay?" As he said that they both got out of the car and went into the house and silently took off their coats and put their bags down. She motioned for him to go ahead and she would follow him, as she walked in she realized it had been a while since she had been in here, giving it to him during his quarter-life crisis or whatever the hell was going on. She also realized that their cleaning service must not have been allowed in here either. "I know, it's a disaster." Logan whispered with an almost apologetic tone. He wasn't wrong. There were papers thrown around the room, a trash can in the corner that was filled with wads of paper.

"Logan, what is going on? What aren't you telling me?"

"You know how my dad put us in charge of the London papers for 3 years?" She almost made a sarcastic comment but after seeing his tired eyes she just silently nodded her head. "His plan has always been for us to just handle the European division, so, he decided to start piling my desk with information on different markets around Europe. He figured since I was working on just the business side I could handle more. What he didn't tell me is that some of these are floundering and now I have to make decisions on where to make cuts, so I'm sitting here looking at numbers all day, every day. And then I have to make decisions on who to cut, where to cut, and I understand that it's business, I understand it's my job. But some of the papers won't even make it so I get to be the one that pulls the trigger on papers just disappearing."

Rory didn't know what to say, she understood why his stress was so high now, why he was so overwhelmed with work and how it had taken its toll. But there was one thing she didn't understand. "Logan, why am I just now hearing about this? It's been two weeks, and we were supposed to be a team in the office and out of it. Why did you shoulder this?"

"Because, while I love you, you don't have the inherit knack for numbers as you do for writing and even editing. It's been destroying my brain and I didn't want you to have to worry about the company or the people losing their jobs. Especially since…"

"Especially since what Logan?" Her voice grew colder, she hated when he put her in the victim spotlight.

"Well, I just know that you've been under a lot of stress lately and I didn't want you to worry." He said, cringing as he said it. Knowing it was lame and wouldn't work with her.

"That's crap Logan. I deserved to know. I deserved to know what the hell was going on with my company too. I deserved to be by your side through this. And did you ever think of having me look over the writing? Trying to see where the weakest writers were? That way we can start cutting those down and then seeing where the budget could go. Some of the weakest writers could be some of the biggest earners, people who have been there for so long that they feel comfortable. It happens, it's like when some people get tenure, I'm not saying it will solve all of the issues, but I guess we should sit down and start looking at all of this. Figure out what we can fix and where we can fix it at." The raw anger was gone from both of their voices but there was still an edge to her voice and an apologetic tone to his.

"Rory…" He reached out to her to try to touch her, but she avoided his grasp.

"We need to work Logan, you've had weeks to look at this, you've had weeks to talk to me, you didn't. Let's look this over." He silently nodded his head as he sat down across from her, he knew he was now in the position where he had to grovel like he never had before. She was right, he had shut her out, made it seem like her opinion didn't matter in this scenario, and not only that but then after weeks of shutting her out he accused her of cheating. He hadn't been serious about it, the stress had just gotten to him and when he heard her talking about how he had ignored her, how he had been acting, he not only felt like an asshole but then he felt worried that whoever she was talking to would judge him. So, his anger came out, and now as he looked across the desk to see her with her hair up and her concentration thrown into a problem he had been trying and failing to solve he knew this battle was long from over.

They spent the next 4 hours going over as much as they could, she was reading different pieces from different writers, the only time she spoke was to answer his question on what she wanted for dinner from the pub down the block from their home and even that was a short answer. Finally, she sighed and gave him a list. "These are the ones that could probably be cut. Their writing has been going downhill. As for the publication in Ireland, the whole paper is probably going to have to be dismantled but see if you can get a few of them to work for the London Times, even if they just telecommute, they're good writers. I'll tackle the French market tomorrow." She said it dismissively. "I'm going to bed."

They both went through their evening routine before they both fell into bed, the silence still upon them. They both laid there for 30 minutes, Rory reading the first edition Jane Austen that she only dragged out when she needed something to calm her down. Logan knew this but wasn't sure how to approach her, so he turned the TV on trying to forget the chill in the air that was creeping under his skin. She watched him shudder out of the corner of her eye. "Does it feel like ice in your veins?" She finally broke the silence. He barely nodded his head. When she didn't say anything else, he found episodes of the Office, the UK version.

"You know, now that we live here, we don't have to abide by the fourth watch rule." He gave her a smile as she rolled her eyes and continued reading. "You won't be able to read anymore if you roll your eyes so hard, they go down the hallway." He smirked at her until he heard her slam her book closed and she turned to him.

"So, you think that you just get to make cheeky comments, and act like everything is fine and I'll just be okay? That we'll just be okay? You really think it's okay to just hide some information about the business from me? What if I edited everything by myself, or if I didn't ask your opinion on how the layout? Would you be okay being phased out? Maybe I'm not the most business orientated of the two of us, but I deserved to be asked about it. And then, when one of our best friends, let me repeat that OUR best friends reaches out to me because he was worried about you, I answered and vented some mild frustrations. I'm allowed to do that Logan. I'm allowed to talk to our friends about what I'm feeling, especially when he was concerned about you too. Do you understand me?"

"I do, I screwed up, I know I screwed up, but I was under a lot of pressure."

"A lot of pressure that you put you on yourself." She pointed out with a sharp glare.

"A lot of pressure that I put on myself, yes. I overreacted, I get that. I'm sorry Rory." He was now pleading with her. "Listen, I will talk to you more. I don't know why I shut you out."

"If something like this happens again you have to talk to me Logan." She knew her resolve was slipping, he was sorry, he had been under a lot of stress, plus he had the brown eyes that always got to her. "And you owe me sushi for lunch tomorrow. Especially since you skipped lunch with me today."

"Anything you want Ace. I'm really sorry."

She leaned over their bed and kissed him deeply when the vibrating of his cell phone drew their attention away from the kiss. "You should probably call Finn back, plus both of our phones have been ringing off the hook for hours."

Logan reached over and turned his phone off before wrapping Rory back up in his arms. "I have a much better idea for the evening."