Chapter Twenty Five

Rory froze. He was honestly the last person she'd ever expected to hear from at that moment. What could he possibly want? He didn't sound particularly angry, so it couldn't be about her piece. Surely if it was about what she had written about him, about how she'd probably destroyed his current business and ruined any possibility of future ones. She also wasn't sure if it was about their son. She couldn't tell from his tone what he was calling about.

"Logan. Why are you calling me?" she hoped her tone wasn't too harsh. She was so confused by it all that she wasn't processing information at her normal rate.

"It's about your story," he said. Rory held her breath. Maybe he was mad and she just couldn't tell. But she really didn't think he sounded upset. In fact, to Rory's ear he sounded defeated.

"What about my story?" Rory had expected Logan to continue on, but when he remained silent, Rory felt compelled to fill the silence.

"Well, it's done quite a number on not only my business, but my reputation as well. We're sort of in damage control mode right now." Logan exhaled a large breath but still, despite the words that he was saying, Rory was sure he wasn't angry. "As such, I've been evaluating what I need to focus on right now and, while I'm not giving up on it completely, I will be dropping my custody suit."

Rory couldn't believe what she was hearing. Logan was ending things, stopping their battle. She wouldn't be facing the possibility of losing Ricky any longer. The greatest of weights was instantly lifted off her shoulders.

"You know," Rory said, slightly hesitantly, "if you want to know Ricky, if you genuinely want to know your son and have him in your life, I won't stop you. I thought I was protecting the life you'd made for yourself after we'd broken up. I would like Ricky to have a father; mine was only a side-character in most of my life, so if Ricky can have a more active father than I did. Well, that would be absolutely fantastic.

There was another sigh, but this was seemed less defeated. "I'd like that," Loga responded before hanging up the phone. Rory sat back into her couch and took a moment to gather herself. If someone had told her nine months ago that she'd have written a ground-breaking expose, be planning her mother's wedding, and had her largest secret revealed to everyone she loved and the father of her son, she would have found it very hard to believe. But that was her life right now.

"Mom! Do you know where my blue plaid shirt is?" the slightly hysterical voice of her son called from his room reminding Rory that, as crazy as her life had gotten, she still had the same responsibilities she had before everything went topsy-turvy.

Rory's story broke quickly. Logan and his company quickly went into damage control and began trying to downplay, smokescreen, and obfuscate the claims that Rory had made. She had to give it up to Logan, he'd hired quite the spin doctor/ P.R. specialist/ white collar lawyer. The team that continued to front the media and try and explain things away was quite convincing. Rory was almost sure that, had she not been the one to write the story, she might have bought some of what Logan's team was claiming.

Along with Rory's story, the SEC took up the investigation. They had greater resources and more experience than Rory had, so she was sure they would find out even more than Rory had. She was a little sad to see the man she had once loved brought so low by his own hubris, but it was mostly his own hubris, his own actions that had been his undoing.

Then, after about three weeks, the story was out of the news cycle. Other major stories, and other financial stories, took over the headlines. Logan's company, and Rory's expose, were quickly relegated to small blurbs whenever an update on the case was released, which were few and far between. Rory might have been more upset about it, except she had been in the news business for several years now and knew how these things worked, and she had her mother's wedding only weeks away. She was way too busy to worry about how long people had talked about the story she'd put months of her life into.

In fact, the months between Rory's story coming out and the May wedding of her mother and Luke passed in more of a blur of tulle. She almost couldn't believe it when she was looking down at the calendar proclaiming that it was the weekend before the big day.

'Where did the time go?' Rory mused to herself as she scrolled through various documents on her computer. she was going through her check list and notes that she'd made for the wedding. It was crunch time. If she missed something or forgot something, she'd better catch it then or it would be too late to do anything else.

"Dress, Check. For mom. For grandma. For me. All check. Flowers for the tables. Check. Flowers for the bouquets. Check," Rory mumbled to herself. With each check she said, Rory crossed off the item on her various lists. It felt good, like she had a little ounce of control over what felt like a crazy hectic situation. She'd thought about going to Stars Hallow that weekend to finalize things with her mother, but Rory was pretty sure she would only get pulled down into her mother's neurosis over the upcoming nuptials. Lorelai didn't have the greatest track record with weddings, especially ones that had been meticulously planned out over several months. The only wedding of the three engagements Lorelai had was a spontaneous elopement, a spur of the moment decision. The two that she'd planned had ended only days or, in the case of her wedding to Max, hours before the date.

Rory just needed to stay in New York, work on the final details and then head to Stars Hallow the following weekend, a long weekend, and make sure her mother made it down the aisle. That was the best way for Rory to maintain her sanity.

The weekend finally came. Lorelai Gilmore was all set to marry Luke Danes. After years of them dancing around each other, almost making down the aisle, and then getting stupid and spending even more years apart from each other. But all that was over now.

Rory sat in the small room in Ms. Patty's dance studio, where the bridal party was getting ready. She was looking in the vanity mirror in front of her, but it wasn't her own reflection she was focused on. Instead, she was intently watching her mother and grandmother.

Emily had arrived about twenty minutes prior, a little huffed that Lorelai had apparently given her the wrong time and had claimed they wouldn't start getting ready until an hour before the wedding. Really, it had been Rory that had made that decision. At times, it was best to limit the length of interactions between the two Gilmore women. That way, they had less time to say something that offended the other and get into a fight about it. With the way Emily had arrived, almost as if she was raring for a fight, Rory was worried she'd made a mistake.

But then Emily had caught sight of Lorelai in her wedding dress. It was the first time, Rory was almost positive, that Emily had seen her daughter in a wedding dress, hair and makeup done. Lorelai hadn't invited her mother to the dress shop, worried that her hypercritical nature would ruin the joyous event. And, Rory was sure that Emily hadn't seen Lorelai in any of her other wedding dresses. So, it must have been a special moment and, the minute the Emily took in the sight, all anger and annoyance left her.

Now, she was sitting on a couch with Lorelai, a small keepsake box in her lap. Rory was surprised that Emily had thought to bring it. Apparently, it contained items that Emily had been saving up over Lorelai's life. Trinkets and mementos that matched the wedding superstition of 'something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.' The pair were going through the items in the box, reminiscing about the memories that some of them brought up, tears forming in both women's eyes. It was a truly beautiful moment all because of Lorelai's wedding, an event that neither woman had got to experience together before.

"Okay ladies!" Ms. Patty's cheery voice rang out over the slight din of voices that filled the room. "We are minutes out from the start of the ceremony. Last minute tweaks only and the we've got to get this show on the road."

Rory took the interruption of Ms. Patty to go corral her mother. Lorelai's dress, make up, and hair were essentially done, but Rory wanted to make sure that everything was absolutely perfect on this special day.

"Oh, good Rory," her grandmother said as she approached the pair. "Your mother's make up is running a little. You should probably fix that. I have to go find my seat," Emily then hurried away. Well, it was nice to know that Emily hadn't really changed. Rory chuckled at her grandmother's escape.

Lorelai had decided that instead of having her father walk her down the aisle, since their relationship was best defined at slightly complicated, Rory would give her mother away. Lorelai had explained that her life hadn't belonged to her parents in thirty years, and she felt it right that Rory be the one to walk with her into this new stage of her life. Rory had bawled when Lorelai had explained this to her.

"You ready?" Rory asked as she dabbed at her mom's face, making sure that all of the makeup was in place.

"More than ever," Lorelai responded. She picked up a small pressed flower from the box that Emily had left and placed it delicately into her bouquet. "Now I've got my something old, blue, and borrowed, because Mom is definitely going to want this flower back." Rory chuckled.

"Okay, Lorelai. Rory. It's show time!" Ms. Patty called again. The two Gilmore girls looked at each other, making sure that the other was ready, and then turned to the door. Rory hadn't ever thought this day would come. Her mother had been so close several times, and she and Luke had been dancing around each other for years. But now that it had happened, she couldn't be happier.

Rory made it to the end of the aisle before the tears started streaming down her face. Seeing the look on Luke's face as he watched Lorelai walk towards her, ready to begin their lives together, had sent her over the edge.

She then only cried harder as they got to the vows, written by Luke and Lorelai themselves. Hearing about the trials and tribulations, the silly promises they made to each other (Lorelai to always keep life interesting and push Luke out of his comfort zone and Luke to always have enough coffee to provision an army), and their wholehearted desire to love each other for the rest of their days. All of it went right to Rory's tear ducts and created a deluge.

While Rory was silently crying at the long-awaited display of love that was happening before her, she caught the eye of Jess. He was Luke's best man, standing behind him as Rory was standing behind her mother. As he looked at her, tears streaming down her face and most likely ruining her makeup, he smiled a warm smile. She felt her heart flutter at the sight, which caught her slightly off guard. She quickly chalked it up the romantic atmosphere all around her.

Surely, she couldn't be feeling something for Jess. Could she?

The past several months of her life had been so consumed with Logan, because of the story, because of their relationship, because of Ricky and the court case. It had all become so much Logan Huntzberger that she hadn't even considered Jess all that much. Even when he'd come to her apartment and they'd had their awkward encounter, and Rory had come to the realisation that Jess potentially had feelings for her, she hadn't thought about it much more than that.

Yet here, at her mother's wedding, with all of that behind her, she was contemplating the possibility of Jess, and she wasn't all that upset at it.

Maybe she could give them another chance.