Disclaimer: I do not own gilmore girls

A/N: So for perspective, they were in London at the end of January, so we are now roughly mid February, and this chapter carries on over the course of about a week, so we are now towards the end of February by the end of the chapter. Read, review, enjoy, the moment you've all been begging for is coming.

Chapter Thirty One

Two Weeks Later

"Mom?" Luca knocked on the door to Rory's room.

"Hey kiddo," Rory smiled as he came in, "sorry, I'm not feeling well."

"Is Logan coming?" Luca asked as he climbed on the bed.

Rory shook her head, "no, Logan can't come, he is away on business, but Grandpa is coming."

"Grandpa Luke?"

Rory shook her head, "no, my Dad."

"For how long?"

"I think a week at least?" Rory told him with a smile. Chris had planned to come to town in a couple of days but Rory had asked him to come sooner after she came down with a stomach flu. "He will be here tomorrow."

"What about tonight?"

"Well," Rory laughed as Luca played with a pillow on her bed, "you are supposed to be asleep, your brothers are asleep…and I am going to bed…so…I think we should last until tomorrow morning, how about you?"

"Did you eat something funny?"

"Maybe," Rory smiled, "I had sushi at the mall yesterday."

"Grandma says only to eat sushi from Al's."

"Grandma is a smart lady," Rory laughed, "can you do me a favour and go to bed though? I wouldn't want you to get sick."

"You'll be ok?"

"I promise I will be ok," Rory smiled.

Luca hopped off the bed and closed the door to Rory's room, he wandered down the hall and slowly opened the door to Eli's room, "Eli, Mom is sick."

Eli was sitting in his room reading, he had agreed to go to his room early because Rory wasn't feeling well, and Rory had agreed that he could stay up and read as late as he wanted to. "I know."

"Can I use your phone?"

"Why?"

"To call Dad."

"Why?"

"Because Mom is sick."

"So why would you call Dad?"

"Mom is sick, dummy."

"Luca, we don't call Dad about Mom anymore," Eli explained in the best way he knew how, suddenly feeling very much the older, wiser brother. "If something is wrong with Mom, we call Logan or Grandpa and Grandma, or Grandpa Chris…"

"Grandpa is coming tomorrow."

"Go to bed."

"Can I stay here?"

"Fine, but if you tell anyone at school I'll say you wet the bed."

xxx

"Kid, you look like crap," Christopher Hayden sat on the side of Rory's bed, "can I get you anything?"

"Tea?" Rory groaned, "soup?"

"Coming right up," Christopher nodded, "the boys are at school, I got them there fine. Only some concerned looks from the other parents about who I was."

"Still a hot Dad thing?" Rory asked quietly, thinking back to when she had brought him around the Yale campus.

"I like to think so," Christopher laughed. He had managed to get on a plane the night before and so he made it to Encino first thing in the morning where he found Rory in rough shape and offered to make lunches, and take the boys to school. "You know kid…"

"Don't."

"Have you told him?"

"Told him what?"

"I've seen you like this before, Ror."

"I'm not," Rory shook her head. It was funny to her that she was talking in these riddles with Christopher, normally they were reserved for her Mom.

"With the twins…"

"Dad!"

"Ror…"

"I can't be," Rory shook her head. "I just ate weird sushi."

"You know only to eat sushi from Al's, you can't trust it anywhere else, my brief marriage to your mother taught me that at least." Christopher patted Rory's leg and stood up, "I'll be back with soup and tea. Takeout menus in the drawer beside the fridge?"

"Always," Rory nodded as Christopher walked away. She felt bad that she wasn't able to actually spend much time with her dad, but she also knew that Christopher was mostly there to see his grandchildren. He was a good Grandpa, anything you could ever say he lacked as a father, he made up for when he was with her boys. She waited until she could hear his steps heading down the stairs to lean her head back onto the pillow and exhale. He had seen her like this before, and she had been pregnant then, with Christopher and James. She and Luca had been visiting him in Boston while Eli was with Sarah and Perry was working, she had spent three full days in bed before she tearfully sent her father to the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. She never really imagined that her dad would be there when she found out she was pregnant, but he was. Chris had later told her how glad he was to experience that with her, maybe it was weird of him to say, but he had felt like he had missed so much of her life, and so being able to see her in the moments after she found out she would become a parent again, it felt like a gift to him. She waited for a while longer, eventually Christopher had shouted up the stairs that he was going to pick up the soup because the delivery would take too long and then she slowly got out of the bed and walked to her bathroom. She rifled around in the tower that separated the his and her sinks and found what she was looking for. A Clearblue Digital Pregnancy test, it touted itself as being the most accurate, and digital…Rory had appreciated that she was now old enough that taking a pregnancy test wasn't the scariest thing she would do. She remembered a scare in college, well, two actually. One with Dean and one with Logan, and both times she had sat in the bathroom of her dorm room anxiously waiting for the colours to change and lines to appear, or not appear, thankfully both times those tests came out negative and by the time she was trying to have children, she was in a position that she was married and in a financially secure position to have a child. Rory unpackaged the plastic stick and made her way to the bathroom. She hadn't peed yet that morning, although it had been a few years since her last test, she remembered reading somewhere that the first pee was the most potent and would be the most likely to give an accurate, early result. She waited. It always seemed like forever, it was only a couple of minutes, ninety seconds maybe before she got her answer. As quickly as it had popped up on the screen, Rory took a deep breath and tossed the stick in the trash, she would make sure the garbage went out before one of the boys had a chance to find it. Before Christopher came home, she splashed some water on her face, brushed her teeth and change into a fresh pair of sweatpants. Slowly, she made her way downstairs to the living room and had just curled up on the couch when her cellphone began to ring. "Hi," Rory smiled into the phone.

"You look like shit," Logan laughed.

"Mean, my other fiancee said I look beautiful."

"Well, he is a liar, and I don't lie to you," Logan told her. It was nearly two in the morning, he was in Hong Kong and would be for another four days, he figured the only good thing about the time difference is that he always felt a little bit closer to his return than she did.

"It's late for you, thank you for calling."

"I don't like this not getting to talk thing. I like it better when we just have to figure out Encino to Palo Alto."

"Well, soon you'll be home."

"Soon," Logan agreed, "you said you've got the flu?"

"I ate sushi at the mall," Rory repeated the story again, "my Dad just got in this morning though, so he is helping with the boys."

"Do you want me to come home early? I can pass this stuff on…"

Rory shook her head, "no, you have work to do and I will be fine. Plus, you'll be jetlagged, so by the time you get back, and recover from the time difference, I'm sure I will be feeling fine."

"Would you tell me if you did want me to come home?" Logan laughed.

Rory grinned, he knew her well, "probably not, but I appreciate you offering. Go to bed, it's late and you have go to be dorky tomorrow."

Logan was speaking at a conference in Hong Kong, it was quite the prestigious event and even though he wouldn't admit it, he had been incredibly excited to go. He figured by the time he got back, his company would have finished signing Tom Anders, and he would be well on his way to his second billion. "But I miss you."

"Honey, they only want you there for your looks and if you don't get your beauty sleep they are not going to be happy because you won't be your pretty, pretty self," Rory joked, the truth was that she was too tired to talk, she just wanted to curl up in a blanket and do nothing except watch TV.

"I love you, let me know how you're feeling before you go to bed tonight?"

"I love you too," Rory hung up the phone and put her head back on the cushion.

By the time the boys came back from school that afternoon, Rory was feeling marginally better. She had eaten some soup from the restaurant her Dad had selected, and had managed to keep down some tea. Logan had sent a few texts and a short video of his appearance, and between his fast-talking tech speech and the smart, black suit he was wearing, Rory was impressed. "How was school?" she smiled widely as the boys came into her view.

"There is a thing coming up," Luca told her.

"A thing…ok? I'm going to need more details."

"Luca wants to ask Logan if he will pay for it," Eli rolled his eyes.

"Well, what is happening that Mom can't pay for?" Rory asked.

"Dad would normally do it," Luca grumbled, again, struggling to decide how he really felt about Logan compared to his father.

"Well, someone humour me," Rory smiled as she saw her Dad taking lunch bags into the kitchen to empty them, "and tell me what is going on. While you two do that," Rory looked between Eli and Luca, "you two," she pointed to James and Christopher, "can help Grandpa in the kitchen."

The little boys agreed and ran to see their Grandfather who would surely give them a pile of treats as well, "there is a hockey game that we can buy tickets to. Some of the money goes to the school."

"So why do you need Logan to pay for this?"

"Because you don't go to hockey games unless it is for Dad."

"Well, you are right, hockey has never been my thing, I usually only go to your games now. When is this game? Can your Dad not go?" the irony wasn't lost on Rory, she was about to pay an inflated price for hockey tickets so that her kids could go with their friends, even though until a few months prior, she would have been able to get the tickets for free from her ex-husband, and even now she would likely be able to get a pretty good deal on them. "I will look at the price and if it makes sense, we will buy tickets…if it doesn't make sense, I will write a cheque to the school."

"But if you just give them money, we don't get to go see the hockey game."

"Guys, your Dad plays hockey as his job…you see more hockey games a year than some kids see in their entire lives."

"But not with our friends."

"I have it on good authority that Dad always lets you bring a friend."

"Mom we can ask Logan, he can pay for it," Luca stated matter of factly.

"Luca," Rory was not feeling well enough for this argument, "the question isn't who has the money, it is if it makes sense to spend money this way. We can pay for this, that isn't the question, but practically, it isn't smart for us to spend money on hockey tickets when we can get them easily from Dad."

"But I want Logan to take us."

Rory was pretty sure her head was going to explode. Luca wasn't articulating himself well, which wasn't surprising for a child his age, and Rory felt like crap still. She took a deep breath and exhaled, "will I be getting an e-mail about this?" both boys nodded in response, "I will read the e-mail. If Logan is in town, I will ask him to take you to this and you guys can go with your classmates."

"Thank you mom!"

Rory smiled as the two older boys disappeared upstairs, she was thankful that her Dad could watch the little boys and she could just rest. The e-mail appeared a few minutes later and Rory scoffed at the outrageous price inflation because it was for the school but she would still agree to send Luca and Eli. If Logan wasn't available, Rory would take them herself, or worst case scenario she would check Perry's schedule and demand his attendance. "You can come out, Dad."

"How are you feeling?" Chris emerged with the two younger boys behind him, carrying a bowl with a variety of fruit.

"Better," Rory lied.

"Did you call the doctor?"

"I did."

"When do you go?"

"Tomorrow."

"I'll take the boys to school then?" Christopher smiled.

"Thank you, Dad."

xxx

Logan's plan to return to Encino had been put on pause, he had to fly to Palo Alto to finish the deal he was working on and put out some small fires with some of his employees with concerns over the HPG merger. Much to his, and Rory's dismay, rather than his original plan to land at LAX on Thursday and spend the weekend recovering from jet lag with her and the kids, he was instead flying to Palo Alto on his company jet, and heading straight into a weekend full of meetings, followed by a week full of employee engagement activities which he would normally have had a lot of interest in, but in this case, he had none, and then he would be heading to New York for a few days to show his face at some HPG meetings and engage some of the HPG employees who were historically under impressed by their executive team. By the time it was all said and done, it would be almost a full month since they had seen each other. Logan had finally landed in Palo Alto and after getting in the car that was picking him up to take him home, Logan pulled out his phone and FaceTimed Rory.

"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Rory smiled as his image came into view. They had talked on the phone, and texted, but they hadn't seen much of each other because of the time difference, Rory not feeling well, and the logistics of her day to day life with the boys, and his meetings for work.

"Do I look older? Sadder?"

"Definitely older, might need to start dying your hair," Rory laughed, she was sitting in bed twirling her engagement ring around her finger. "When do you think we can see each other?" she asked hopefully, one of the perks of their relationship was that Logan had the ability to swing in and out very quickly, but he was also incredibly busy. She couldn't wait until they lived together in Stars Hollow. Sure, he would be gone for work, but the kids would be closer to their Dad, she would have her Mom to help, and it hopefully wouldn't result in them having conversations like this, halfway through a month of being apart. It had been unseasonably warm back east, so Rory was relieved to hear that they had actually started excavating the property a week prior.

"And how is Johnny? Keeping my side of the bed warm?"

"He won't wear the eyepatch," Rory exhaled wistfully.

"Are you feeling better? You said you were, but honestly Ace, you are looking a little bit pale."

"I know, but I'm feeling better, it's just lingering," she told him with a smile, "I went to the doctor, I have a clean bill of health."

"You never told me you went to the doctor," Logan felt his forehead crease as he expressed his concern, "it was that bad?"

"I couldn't keep anything down, my Dad thought I should. They really just gave me a once over and sent me on my way. No fever, no drastic weight loss…"

"I'm glad your Dad was there."

"Oddly enough, me too. It was nice…having him around is nice."

"So I promise I will be back for the hockey game, what day did you say that as?" Logan asked, Eli and Luca had called him a couple of days earlier to ask if he would take them to the game and he had assured them that he would, it was a promise he intended to keep, come hell or high water.

"March 11, which also reminds me I need to call Perry and tell him about that," Rory told him. "Logan, I can start prepping them for the fact that it might be me who takes them, you are so busy with this Anders thing."

Logan shook his head and gave her a reassuring smile, "I promised them that I would take them. I don't intend to start breaking promises to you, or to them any time soon. It might just be that I fly in for the night, take them, sleep at the house and leave in the morning, but I will be there."

Rory felt a wave of relief wash over her, she understood how important his business was and she also understood that a hockey game may not seem like a huge deal, but to the boys it was a huge deal, and to Rory it was a huge deal that her boys wanted to go with Logan. "They are really excited."

"I am really excited, and I'm hoping that once all of this craziness levels out, we can get back to our normal routine. You said Perry is keeping them for a week in March?"

Rory nodded, "yes, they have their March Break, and it doesn't look like the Sabres will be making the playoffs this year, so he might stay with his sister to be able to see the kids after the season is over."

"That would free you up a bit more?" Logan grinned.

"Something like that."

"Alright, I've got a call to make, but I will talk to you tomorrow, sound good?"

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Rory exhaled for a moment before she clicked FaceTime once again to call her ex-husband. His face came up on her screen after a moment and she smiled, he looked good, he looked happy, "long time."

"It has been, how are you? I haven't seen you much, Eli has been taking care of the calls," Perry laughed, now that Eli had his own phone, there was less reason for Rory to see him if they weren't talking about visitation with the boys.

"I know, it's strange," Rory admitted, "I'm good, everyone is good. The house in Stars Hollow has started."

"Exciting stuff," Perry was looking away from the camera, "so, not that I don't love catching up but I'm about to head out to practice. What can I help with?"

Rory wished they could engage in a few more minutes of pleasantries because she wasn't sure how this was going to go. Sure, Perry was completely supportive of Logan having a solid relationship with the boys, but this particular activity screamed Perry, and his kids hadn't wanted him to go. "Well, there is a fundraiser at the school."

"I can e-transfer you, just tell me how much."

Rory laughed, "no Per, it isn't the money. It's a Kings game, the boys really wanted to go…"

"Alright, when is it? I can try to make it…don't they know that we can get free tickets? Or at least super discounted?"

Rory smiled, "I tried to explain that, but apparently it is not the same. But no, the reason I'm calling is that they asked Logan to take them. I just…I didn't want you to be blindsided if they mentioned it, or you'll see them the next week when they're with you…"

"The boys wanted Logan to take them to a Kings game?" Perry nodded, Rory could see his adams apple bob as he swallowed, "well…Luca loves hockey."

"Perry, I'm sorry. I told them to ask you but they…"

"Hey, they are kids, it's fine. I'm fine…if he can't make it or something comes up, just let me know and I will get out there."

"Thank you Perry."

"I gotta go though, I'll talk to you later Ror."

xxx

"Gilmore, why did I get a blood sample from you overnighted to my office?" Paris barked into the phone.

"I need you to run a test on it."

"Everything alright?"

"I need you to tell me if I'm pregnant."

"You know they have these things you buy these days, you pee on them, they give you a result…" Paris rolled her eyes as she walked down Park Ave on a mission to get to her office.

"Yes, I have heard of them, used them once or twice too, including every day for the last week. I keep getting positives, so that is good, but I just…I want to be sure."

"You're getting positives on an EPT? Is it expired, or still current."

"I'm not suing expired pregnancy tests, Paris."

"Just had to be sure. Those are pretty accurate."

"Well, based on the two other times I have been pregnant, Paris," Rory was becoming more annoyed by the second. Much like her entire friendship with Paris, their adult one was no different. If Rory hadn't called Paris, Paris would have been upset, she could hear her now, I am the most sought after fertility specialist in the country and you couldn't even bother to call me? You don't think I can confirm a pregnancy and refer you to an OB? I am insulted Gilmore…

"I will run the test and call you in a couple of hours," Paris assured her, "discretely, of course. So he finally did it, huh?"

"I'm not following, Paris?"

"Huntzberger, he's producing an heir, a quasi legitimate one at that. His Dad is going to be over the moon."

"Please never refer to my potential child as quasi legitimate ever again."

"You know what I mean Rory. His old man will love you now."

"I don't particularly care what Mitchum or Shira Huntzberger think of me."

"How have you been feeling?"

"Not great," Rory admitted, she had been throwing up most days a handful of times, but she was able to keep more food down as the days went on. "But better than when I was pregnant with James and Christopher."

"That was awful," Paris agreed, she remembered what rough shape Rory was in when she was pregnant with twins and chasing Luca and Eli around. "How far along do you think you are?"

Rory did some mental calculations. Her last period was the middle of January, which meant she would have conceived when they were in London, and that had been almost three weeks ago, by the time she would see Logan she would be close to eight weeks along. "About five from my last period."

"OK, well…I have to go…this industry never sleeps but I'll call you with the results."

"Thanks Paris."