AN: Woo updates! Thank you for the reviews and kindness, I love them. I will warn, I'm not sure how much I will get done until next week - work is insane. But after Monday I am off for a few days so I will be able to relax and write I hope. Please note, I am purposely not writing their therapy sessions because I don't think I can do them justice.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter Fourteen

"Wine?" Logan exhaled as they walked into the kitchen. Mia was asleep and their therapist had just left. They had gone back and forth countless times about Richard, how to talk about Richard, safe ways to bring him up. They had talked about how Tristan and the affair had become this taboo topic, Cindy, their therapist suggested that they were giving a short affair too much power over the future of their relationship. Logan thought they had made some progress, but it was clear they would need to keep seeing Cindy or another one of their therapists moving forward, maybe not specifically to discuss Richard, or even Tristan, but to work on healthy ways of communicating.

"Please," Rory nodded as she ran a hand through her hair, "I don't know if I love having her come here, or if I hate it. I mean, it's great because we don't have to go out, but it's also exhausting because it's like the family room becomes a boxing ring."

"I know," Logan agreed as he slid a glass of bordeaux across the island and exhaled, "can I ask you something?"

Rory took a sip of the wine and nodded. They both had a remarkable ability to speak kindly, and calmly to each other after one of their sessions, she supposed that meeting with Cindy gave them a feeling of clarity. "Sure."

"Do you ever want to have another baby?" Logan asked. "There is no right or wrong answer here, I just…I want to know if I should be giving up this thought."

"So you do want another baby?"

"I mean, I would like to consider it."

"I think that I would consider adopting again, but Logan…I'm not saying it to be cruel. I just can't physically do it. I can't worry about when the other shoe is going to drop."

Logan nodded. It wasn't the answer he wanted, but he understood that pregnancy was something that impacted her differently than it would impact him, and that in this case she got to decide what was right for her body. "So maybe we can talk about that once things are settled?"

"Jesus, how much more is there to settle?" Rory asked as she took a sip of wine.

"I think we need to get through this, work through it…figure out what we are going to do about a move…if we are going to…you know?" he referred vaguely to his suggestion that they make a statement about Rory's affair.

"I don't think we should," Rory told him quietly. She had thought about it a fair amount over the last few days, and she wasn't sure that was information she was prepared to put into the universe if she didn't need to.

"So you just want to wait, and hope it doesn't come up again?"

Rory paused before she spoke. She supposed that in this situation, it was Logan who got to call the shots. She was the one who had the affair, she had created the mess, and he was the aggrieved party. "I just think…if there is no threat, why come out with it? If in a year, someone else is knocking and knows, we can deal with that. Maybe this is selfish of me, in fact, I know it is selfish of me, but if I can live in a world for a while longer where the entire universe doesn't have the ability to search what amounts of one of the single worst things I have ever done…I would prefer to leave it that way. So if you want this Logan, if you really want this. If telling the world that I cheated on you will make this better for you then I will do it. But…until there is a threat, I don't think we need to."

Logan took a moment to absorb the words, to consider what she was saying. He supposed it made sense, but is that what she thought? That he wanted to make a statement outlining such a terrible moment. He shook his head and exhaled, "Ace, it isn't what I want. I don't want to embarrass you, I just don't want this hanging over our head. God…you think I wanted to do this to hurt you?"

Rory wasn't really sure how to answer. She bought herself another few seconds with a sip of her wine and spoke softly, "I just know that you say you've forgiven me but sometimes it doesn't feel that way."

"How long have you felt that way?" Logan asked, now taking a sip of his own drink and wishing maybe that they had chosen scotch instead, something stronger than wine. "Like I'm…punishing you?"

"Off and on," Rory shrugged.

"Off and on this entire time?" Logan could practically feel his eyes bulging out of his head as she nodded, he put the wine glass down on the counter and closed the gap between them. "Rory, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if you feel like I have spent four years punishing you for this. It has been rough, I know I haven't always been perfect. Hell, I wasn't perfect in therapy tonight, but…I swear to god, I love you, I love you and I have forgiven you and I love our life. Even if all of those things weren't true, I wouldn't hold onto this forever. You're Mia's Mom, I could never not love you."

"I don't doubt that you love me Logan," Rory told him honestly, she put her wine glass down and ran a finger across his face, smiling as she reached his stubble, she loved when he let a little bit of stubble grow in. "It just…it's like walking on egg shells," Rory explained, "whenever we fight or bicker, I just worry if you're going to throw it in my face. I know that I don't have a right to judge you or how you have dealt with it, and I know that after the incident," she referred to Logan's dalliances with Honor's wedding party, "I didn't deal with it well. I was indifferent towards you, I was…cold. So I know that there is no one way to deal with it, but I just…I'm scared. I'm scared that we're going to be bickering about a guest list for an event and the next second you are going to be yelling at me about Tristan, or Richard."

"I don't yell that often," Logan countered, he was trying to bring some levity to the situation. He was right, he wasn't a yeller, but he was good with words and that meant even if he wasn't yelling, they managed to hurt just as much because he was just as intentional with them. "We've got to work through this."

"I'm not going to cheat on you again. I'm not going back to Tristan. It's like the accident has brought all of this back to the surface. Which I get, it makes sense that you would worry because I didn't remember you, and I reached out to him, but I swear to you Logan. I want you, I love you. I don't want to be with anyone else, I don't want to wake up with anyone else ever. I just…all I want is you and Mia, our family."

Logan inhaled. He had two choices. They had been down this road before, and Logan knew that and maybe on some level he hadn't completely put it behind him. But here they were, at a crossroads yet again. The trauma was at the surface again and he knew he had to make a choice. He needed to get past it, they had talked about it. They had talked about it to death. Rory had told him how she ended up with Tristan and he understood it. Rory had told him that she would try to be a safer place for him to talk about Richard. She was trying, but it was like he just kept reminding her that it wasn't enough because she couldn't undo it. She couldn't take it back, just like he couldn't take it back when he had slept with Honor's friends. "If I tell you that we're good, will you believe me?"

"You could tell me that the sky was falling and I would believe you," Rory admitted. They both knew that wasn't true, but what she was telling him is that she would always trust him implicitly. "But I need to see the follow through."

"We're good," he told her simply. "It's done. I'm good, we're good. I trust you."

"Are you sure?" Rory asked. Her breath hitched, she had heard this before, she had been hopeful before and then a few weeks, or maybe a few months later it would come crashing down around her.

Logan nodded and pressed his head against hers. He could feel how shaky her breath was as she inhaled and exhaled. He closed his eyes and tried to think about the future. They had an incredible future, but he would ruin it if he couldn't put this behind him. "I'm positive. I forgive you. I believe you," he repeated the words that they had started using in therapy years earlier to try to get over the betrayal.

"I love you," Rory murmured, his breath was hot on her lips. "I love you so much Logan, I don't ever want to lose you."

"You won't," Logan assured her as he pulled her in for a hug. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her, but he knew if he kissed her, the end result would be them having sex in the kitchen. The sex had never been their problem. Their problem was their inability to effectively communicate when the stakes were high. The passion was there, the attraction was there, it was always there, but they needed to learn how to manage their feelings together, not separately. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere," he whispered.

"I want to kiss you," Rory told him with a smile. It was like she was reading his mind. She knew that they could fall into the old familiar passion of each other, or, they could keep talking, keep connecting and try to work on a path to a new normal.

"I know," Logan smiled and kept hugging her, "I want to kiss you too…but that isn't the problem. That has never been broken, somehow…through all of this."

"I can't help that I married the most attractive man at Yale."

"Well, you're not too bad yourself. I still think you are the most beautiful woman in the world."

"Why don't we go turn on the fire," Rory pulled away slowly and grabbed both of their wine glasses, "turn on a show, and relax. Talk, just enjoy the night. Tomorrow we need to talk about London and your Dad, but I think maybe for tonight we've done enough of the heavy shit?"

"You sure? We could try to battle it out a few more rounds?"

"Tempting," Rory laughed, "but not as tempting as watching reruns of The West Wing."

"Oh come on," Logan groaned, "I would rather watch the news."

"Really?" Rory perked up a bit, "you would choose the news over Martin Sheen?"

"I would definitely choose the news over Martin Sheen."

"You're no fun," Rory laughed as they sat on the couch. Rory handed him his wine as she snuggled up against him.

"I am plenty of fun, but my idea of fun is not to watch a show that ended long ago to ogle an old man."

"Bite your tongue!"

"You might have to do that for me," Logan winked, "but seriously. We could watch a current show. I think we have some Scandal to catch up on? That would be fun."

"Scandal? No way," Rory laughed, "if there is anything Shonda Rhimes has taught me over the years is that she cannot handle multiple shows, remember how Greys started to suck after Private Practice…so no, I will not grow attached to Scandal only to have it break my heart in the end."

"You have spent a lot of time thinking about that, haven't you?" Logan laughed.

"Well I have been hurt. I have been hurt and I am not going to do that again."

"By Shonda Rhimes?"

"Personally victimized."

"Should I be writing a letter? Defending your honour? Is this like when Bobby called us cute and I should definitely throw down?

Rory crossed her arms in front of her body and pouted, "you're making fun of me."

"Who me? No," Logan shook his head and laughed, "I understand that this is very serious business."

"Speaking of serious business," Rory began to change the subject before Logan interrupted her with a smile and a finger to her lips, "but!"

He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, "nope. We said. We said we were just going to have a fun night, we've done the heavy stuff. We don't need to talk about anything serious right now. You said so yourself just a few minutes ago."

"But I-" Rory began.

"Nope," Logan told her. "You stay here, pick a show," he wiggled out from his spot as her pillow. "I'm going to go get us some cheese and snacks, and I will watch whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?" Rory repeated.

"Even if you want to ogle old men. I just draw the line at participating in it myself. So don't think I am a fill in for your Mom," Logan called over his shoulder as he went into the kitchen. He quickly put together a makeshift charcuterie board that he knew Rory would enjoy, for good measure he added a small bowl of chocolates to the tray and returned to find Rory had in fact turned on the news. "How did I get so lucky?" Logan asked as he put the tray on the table and wormed his way back into his position snuggling with Rory.

"The PVR was full so it didn't record," Rory grumbled. "Is this the good cheese?" she asked as she picked up an aged cheddar and gave it a quick sniff.

"It is the kind you like," Logan lamented, "not so sure I would call it good cheese."

"As a woman who grew up consuming spray cheese and pre-shredded cheese, if it comes in brick form, it definitely qualifies as the good cheese!" Rory countered.

"It is normal cheese," Logan laughed as Rory fed him a piece. "I like it, I know it tastes good, but if we send it to school with Mia for lunch, I really don't think it qualifies to be in the upper echelon of our cheese repertoire."

"You are such a snob!" Rory laughed, "a cheese repertoire? Are we really those people?" she popped a few chocolates in her mouth and smiled, "thank you for getting this."

"You're welcome," Logan gave her a squeeze. "I think to be clear though, when we moved to our waterfront estate in Newport, we both really personified the snob thing."

"It was a gift, how could we turn down a gift?" Rory challenged, thinking back to how Elias had gifted them the house and they had simply decided to move in full-time after Richard died.

"Yes, because normal people get gifted houses?"

"When did you become the everyman of this situation?" Rory laughed as she popped a grape in her mouth.

"I've been spending too much time with you," Logan smirked. This was nice. He enjoyed it. The banter, the ease with which they went back and forth. They needed to get back to a point where this was their normal. Sure, every married couple bickered and disagreed, but they had spent the last little while, excluding the period where Rory suffered from temporary memory loss dealing with such heavy subjects. They didn't get to be carefree anymore, and while Logan had certainly matured since getting married and becoming a father, he was still the same man who would happily jet off to The Plaza for a night or run to Vegas for a weekend to blow off steam. They spent so much time, as most people with young children did, focused on Mia. Was she developing properly? Making sure she had play dates, friends, family time. They rarely got to take a moment to themselves, and more often than not, when they did, they spent it bringing up heavy topics from the past. Logan exhaled and then took a moment to inhale the scent of Rory's shampoo. If letting go of the past, and truly letting it go meant that they could have more moments like this, he knew it was not just what he needed to do, but what he wanted to do.

"My Mom was asking if she could come in a couple of weeks? I guess things are pretty quiet at the Dragonfly."

"That would be nice," Logan agreed, "I will be in New York a bit, day trips, this month."

"And I need to figure out what I'm doing about work."

"Do you want to go back to work?" Logan asked tentatively.

Rory took a moment to consider her answer before she spoke, "I think so, yeah," she told him. "If we end up moving I don't know what I'll do, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Sure," Logan agreed as he reached forward and took his glass of wine, enjoying a long sip. "I am going to order another case of this? Do you like it?"

"I do," Rory agreed. "That would be nice," she smiled. In a weird way she liked when Logan took care of things around the house. It reminded her in some ways of when she was younger and Luke would help out around the house, or when she and Dean were dating and he would change the water bottle. So many things in their life were taken care of by someone. An employee, work, the foundation, but when they just lived a normal life and talked about grocery shopping and what needed to be done around the house, it all just felt more normal. "Do you think you have time to make the new shelves we talked about for the garage over the weekend? I can help while Mia has her quiet time?"

"Is you helping supposed to make me want to do it more or less? Remember I have seen you threaten to use a power tool before."

"That was one time."

"And Paris has told me about your building days from Chilton…."

"You are mean," Rory laughed, "fine. I will sit inside and eat candy and read a book and you can build the shelves in the garage."

"Guess you'll just have to find a way to thank me."

"In your dreams," Rory rolled her eyes.

"You have no idea."