AN: Hey guys! Just wanted to address some feedback at the top. I got a question from an anon about whether or not I'd be getting into Rory's post partum in this fic, and I figured it's probably a question a lot of you will have. I'm sorry to say the answer is no. There are a few reasons for that.

First and foremost, I have never had children, and it is simply not a subject that I am comfortable writing in detail. I know without question that I do not have the experience or the insight to do it justice, and I would second guess and obsess over every single sentence I wrote - which would probably only end up with me stopping writing this all together.

Secondly, the overall arc of this fic is coming to an end. The truth of the matter is, this fic was never about Rory and Logan's journey as parents. This fic is about them coming back together while they happen to be having a child. The problems that they have been working through are starting to be resolved, and if I kept going much longer, the main conflict of this story would be missing. I can't in good conscience continue to write a story without an overarching conflict. I've already found myself struggling with these last few chapters because the conflict is disappearing, and as I've mentioned before I really struggle with writing fluff.

Finally, as I said in my last AN, I will be continuing this in one-shots where I will explore some loosely fitting parenting moments and other storylines that don't fit into the main arc of this story. If you're wanting more Daddy Logan and Mommy Rory content, you will find it there.

Thanks so much for your reviews and your feedback! I hope you're not too disappointed. :)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Monday, October 16, 2017

"But the boy stayed away for a long time, and the tree was sad.

And then one day the boy came back and the tree shook with joy, and she said:

"Come, boy climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and be happy."

Logan woke with a deep and satisfying breath of air.

He couldn't remember the last time he had slept this well, the last time he'd woken up and actually felt rested and fresh, ready to take on the day.

He burrowed into the pillow underneath his head and basked in the feel of the perfectly soft yet supportive mattress underneath him. He spread his arms out, relishing in the sheer amount of space around him. The bright sun was shining through the windows onto his face, making him aware that it was morning without needing the sound of his alarm to inform him. He was about to let out a contented sigh when his eyes suddenly snapped open in an abrupt and alarming realization.

It was morning.

It was morning, and for the first time in months he hadn't been woken up in the middle of the night.

His hand shot out to the nightstand next to him, landing on the phone that was attached to the charger for the night. He started swiping across the screen until his thumb graced across the baby monitor app. In an instant, an image of Ellie sound asleep in her crib flashed across his screen. He watched in terror for a moment, until her tiny hand twitched in her sleep, and he felt his momentary panic die down. Glancing up at the very top of his screen, he noted that it was seven thirty in the morning.

She'd slept through the night.

Panic suddenly gave way to wonder. He was filled with an unbridled sense of joy and relief. He'd expected this morning to be a good one, but this was beyond his wildest dreams.

A full night's sleep. In a king sized bed. In a bedroom that was almost as big as the entire apartment he'd been living in for the past four months. In a city that was far far away from Kirk Gleeson. It didn't even matter that he was probably going to have to dig through a cardboard box to find a pair of shoes to wear to the office. He'd go barefoot if he had to - with a smile on his face.

He was in his own house. It was bare. It was mostly empty. He was still finding drywall dust in corners and on surfaces. He had no idea where anything was because most of their items were still packed away in the boxes that they had moved in yesterday. But, he was home. He had just spent the first night of his life asleep in the home that he planned to build with the woman he loved.

Logan turned over on his side, his eyes landing on the woman in question. Rory was still fast asleep. Her back was turned toward him and her slightly mussed hair was spread out across her pillow. He watched her for a moment without moving, contemplating whether or not he should continue to let her sleep, or whether he should succumb to his more selfish motives and wake her up.

In the end, he lost out to his more base desires. Self-control was never really one of his strongest attributes, and it wasn't like the opportunity for them to have some quality alone time had come up very often in the last four months. If he didn't take advantage of it now, lord only knew when he would get another opportunity.

He moved closer to her, spooning himself up against her back. His fingers trailed lightly over her shoulder, and he brushed the loose heather grey strap of her tank top down down her arm so he could press his lips against the freckled bare flesh underneath. When his lips made contact with her skin, she let out a light hum, and when they started to trail over her shoulder toward the nape of her neck, her voice grew louder.

"Hmmh...Logan?" she mumbled as she surrendered to consciousness. Logan's lips twitched upward in a smirk as she responded to him, and he continued peppering kisses along the curve of her neck, traveling closer and closer to her ear.

"Good morning," he whispered. His voice was low and gravely from sleep, but years of experience had taught him that that would only help his cause.

Rory's eyes fluttered open. She craned her neck over her shoulder to look at him, and Logan watched as the emotional journey that he had just moments ago been through himself passed over Rory's face. Her facial expression morphed quickly from neutral to contended to pensive and then finally landed on panic. Her eyes grew wide, and the next thing he knew he was being pushed off of her as she threw her arm out and sat up in the bed.

"What time is it?!" she asked. "Where's Ellie?!"

"She's asleep," Logan replied with an amused smile. He reached out and grabbed hold of her hand, pulling her back down to him on the bed. Rory didn't fight him, but it was clear that she was completely distracted by other matters.

"Asleep?" she asked, craning her neck to the left to look at the clock on her nightstand.

"Mmm hmm," he grumbled, gently turning her face back toward him and resuming his advances on her neck.

"But… she can't…" Rory started stammering. Logan's hand crept underneath the baggy cotton of her tank top and started creeping along her sides. "She's probably hungry. I should go wake her up…"

"Never wake a sleeping baby, Ace…" he said. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that?"

"But…" she continued. "I haven't fed her since midnight. I should check on her…"

"I already checked on her in the monitor," he said. "She's fine. She's fast asleep."

"But…"

"She'll let us know when she's hungry."

When Rory didn't chime in with another argumentative response, Logan took that as a cue to continue. He captured her lips in a kiss and after a just a couple of seconds, Rory eventually relaxed into him with a moan and a sigh. Logan rolled them over so that he was hovering on top of her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I think…" he started as he broke away from the kiss and started slowly pushing the hem of her tank top upward. "... we should take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity…" he slid the shirt over her head and started trailing kisses down her chest from her clavicle to her sternum. "...to christen this room."

Logan could feel the vibrations of Rory's chest underneath his lips as she let out a soft laugh in response to his assertion.

"We already christened this room, remember?" she asked, her fingers playing with the unruly wisps of his hair.

Logan's mind was suddenly taken back to the moment just a few weeks ago when they had last been alone in this room together. Lorelai had taken Ellie for the day while they came to the house to wait for the delivery of the living room sectional. And considering the fact that the house was basically empty from any and all distractions, they had to find a way to keep themselves occupied. The combination of being baby free for an entire day and weeks worth of pent up sexual frustration had culminated in a day that Logan would probably remember for the rest of his life.

They'd started off in the kitchen, moved on to the room where Rory had already started setting up her office, and ended up staging the finale in the bedroom. The room was still completely empty at that point, and Logan had managed to pull off a move that he hadn't even attempted since he was still in his twenties. He'd slammed her up against the wall to the right of the fireplace and held her there while she wrapped her thighs around his waist and pounded into her as furiously as he could. It was a moment that was memorable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that he would be able to use it as ammunition the next time she made fun of him for going to the gym too much.

Technically Rory was right. But, being reminded of that particular day wasn't making him very interested in backing off of his mission due to technicalities. He felt himself starting to grow hard at the memory, and as Rory moved her thigh ever so slightly underneath him, she ended up brushing against him through the thin material of his trunks.

"I guess I'll take that as a yes," she said with a flirtatious laugh.

"Oh, I remember," he confirmed, nuzzling his nose into the side of her fuller than normal breasts.

For the past few weeks, Rory had been steadily regaining her sex drive. That day a few weeks ago aside, things had been pretty dry between them for a while - for good reason. Logan was more than happy with this recent development, but he had come to learn that there were a few things about her that weren't exactly the same as they had been before the baby had been born. In general, it was far easier to entice her with the idea of oral rather than anything else, and she didn't exactly like him to give all that much attention to her breasts. It was a damn shame, but definitely not something that he was going to argue over.

"But…" he said, as he continued his journey away from her breasts and down her torso. "We haven't christened this bed yet."

"Mmm no…" Rory replied with a contented moan. "We haven't."

Logan smirked again as he flicked his eyes upward and watched Rory's head fall back to relax against her pillow. Taking that as tacit permission to keep going, he hooked his fingers through the waistband of her underwear and pulled, sliding them over her hips and down her thighs until Rory herself helped him rid her of them with a small kick.

He bit his lip as he settled himself between her legs and took a moment to look down at her. Somehow, after years of being together and literally hundreds of intimate moments between them, he never got tired of seeing her open up for him. She was the sexiest woman he'd ever seen in his life, and remarkably she'd only become sexier to him after she'd given birth to their daughter. He hadn't thought it was possible, but she surprised him every day.

He started planting kisses against the inside of her thigh, slowly moving his way upward toward his ultimate goal. As he moved closer, he felt Rory's fingers slide over his scalp once again and her legs slip over his shoulders. When his breath brushed apex of her thighs, he heard Rory let out an impatient moan, and her grip on his hair tightened.

"Logan… please," she muttered.

It was all the encouragement that Logan needed. Yet, just as he was about to press his lips against her, he was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a piercing cry coming from the nursery down the hall. He turned his head toward the doorway with a sigh, and Rory slumped completely against the mattress with a groan entirely different from the ones she had been letting out just moments before.

"Well…" he said with a sigh. "I said she'd let us know…"

Rory sighed and sat up, grabbing the tank top that Logan had discarded from the other side of the bed and pulling it over her head.

"I'll get her," she said as she threw her legs over the side of their bed. "I'm thinking you'll probably need a few minutes."

Logan wasn't about to deny the fact. He merely watched her as she slipped on a pair of shorts that she'd left on the floor the night before and disappeared out the door, calling out to Ellie as she went to let her know that Mommy was coming.

He rolled over on his back, letting out a heavy gust of air at the momentary disappointment. Strangely, however, he couldn't bring himself to be all that upset at the fact that his daughter had officially cockblocked him. Instead, he felt strangely… happy. He wasn't annoyed or frustrated. He was slightly disappointed, but not nearly enough to put him in a bad mood.

It was a perfect morning. They were home. They were in their home. In their bed. With their daughter crying to be fed down the hall. They were a family, and they would be a family for the rest of their lives.

A year ago he had woken up in an Inn, watching Rory as she sat on the window seat across the room and looked out into New Hampshire forest around them. A year ago she had handed him a key to his father's house in Maine, telling him without words that their journey together was over. A year ago he had walked away from her thinking that he would never see her again, and that his visions of a life with her would be nothing but a fantasy he carried with him for the rest of his life.

And today he was lying in a bed inside the home they shared together with their daughter for the very first time.

A cold shower didn't seem like a very bad price to pay.


Her heart was pounding as she stared at the bold lettering of the email that was sitting in the 'Important and Unread' section of her account. Important and unread was a great way to put it. Important because it was a moment that she had been waiting for since the second she'd first contemplated writing her book. Unread because… it was a moment that she had been waiting for since the second she'd first contemplated writing her book.

An overwhelming sense of anxiety was coming over her as she looked down at the screen of her tablet. Though, it wasn't a fearful anxiety. It was an excitable anxiety, one that was born from the sudden realization that this was actually happening to her.

Until this moment, the book had always been somewhat of an abstract concept to her. Sure, there were words on the page, and she had been through edits and meetings and signed contracts and done everything she needed to do to make it happen. But, the idea of a physical book that she would one day hold in her hand was still a kind of an amorphous concept. It was still kind of a fantasy in many respects. But the moment she tapped on this email and opened the PDFs that her agent had attached, it would cease to be abstract and suddenly become very real. She would know exactly what her book was going to look like.

Rory took a deep breath, deciding that she had officially wanted long enough to open it. She barely skimmed the words that her agent had sent in the body of the email, far too excited and eager to flip through the images that she knew were waiting for her at the bottom of her screen.

"Okay, Ellie…" she said to her daughter who was sitting happily in her swing on the floor of the living room. "Do you want to help Mommy pick out the cover for her book?"

Ellie let out a little squeak of excitement. She started kicking her feet and waving the crinkly octopus toy that she had been chewing on for the last five minutes excitedly in the air. Rory smiled and started walking over to her, stepping over the open boxes and piles of clutter that had gathered on the floor while she was in the middle of unpacking.

She hadn't been expecting to get this email today. She'd really only expected to spend her day organizing the house as best as she could with the limited storage space they currently had and waiting for her guests to arrive. They were still waiting on quite a bit of furniture, and she had a feeling boxes would be spread out all over the place for quite a while. Still, getting the place at least partially put together was pretty high on her priority list, especially considering the fact that there were going to be people ringing her doorbell at any moment, and it might be beneficial for them to be able to walk through the place.

But, unfortunately, fate seemed to have other plans. What had started off as just a quick break to check her texts and emails had now officially turned into a huge professional moment. All concerns about unpacking had swiftly flown out the window. She lowered herself to the floor in front of Ellie's swing, smiling at her little girl while she started letting out squeals and laughs at the sight of her mother getting closer to her.

"Let's see what they sent, huh?" she asked. "Do you want to look at the pretty pictures?"

Ellie smiled up at her with a sparkle in her eyes - her big brown eyes. At this point they had lost almost all of the blue that had been lingering around her pupils. Rory just looked down at her for a few seconds, taking a moment to let her heart overflow at the sight of her baby before turning her attention back to another very different baby of sorts.

She was just about to open the PDF and start flipping through the options for her cover art when the doorbell suddenly rang. She sighed, cursing yet another inopportune moment of timing. With another deep breath, she closed the cover over her tablet and tossed it on the floor next to Ellie's swing.

"Well…" she said to the still blissfully happy baby in front of her. "I guess that will just have to wait, huh?"

Ellie laughed again, the goofy smile on her face was contagious, and Rory found that she couldn't stay annoyed at the fact that she would need to wait for very long. She reached into the swing, wrapping her hands around her baby and plucking her from the seat as she stood up. Ellie was delighted to be in her mother's arms and she immediately started banging her tiny little open palm against Rory's chest.

"Let's go get the door," Rory said as if it was the most exciting prospect in the world. "Let's go see who it is."

Of course, she already knew who it was, but Ellie certainly didn't. And one thing that Rory had learned over the past four months was that it didn't matter much what she said to Ellie as long as she was saying something to her. She had long ago given up on reading children's books to her when she was putting her to sleep, realizing that she was too young to have any idea what was going on in them anyway.

The other night she had decided to read Ronan Farrow's New Yorker piece about Harvey Weinstein while she put Ellie to bed. It was the only opportunity that she'd had to sit down and read it since it had blown up online, and she was itching to do so - not just because it was an incredible story, but also because it wasn't very often that a singular piece of journalism rocked the world in such a profound way these days. She'd momentarily felt odd about it, but Ellie was out in a matter of minutes, thankfully before anything got too graphic.

The story had moved her. Not just in the obvious way that it had moved pretty much every woman she knew, but it had left her with an itch that she hadn't felt in a long time. It had reminded her why she'd fallen in love with journalism in the first place, and for the first time in over a year she felt herself wanting to write a story again. There was still a lot still left to wrap up with her book, and she wasn't exactly sure what form it would take. But, after wondering for a while what she would do once her book was finished, she was finally starting to think about getting back into the fray, either by freelancing again, or perhaps in a more long-form nonfiction format.

They walked across the living room floor, Rory being very careful not to step on any objects or trip over any boxes, and turned to go down the staircase. With a few downward steps, the front door came into view, and Rory could make out the blurry shadows of people moving on the other side of the glass windows to the side of the door. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she took a step forward, wrapped her hand around the door handle, and pulled it open.

"Howdy, neighbor!"

The enthusiastic greeting was followed up by a bubbling laugh of excitement, and Rory was pretty sure that the only reason why her visitor hadn't thrown herself at her the moment she opened the door was because of the baby on her hip.

"Hi, Sookie," she replied with a smile. "It's so good to see you! Though, I'm not sure we can call each other neighbors. Tarrytown is still an hour away."

"Close enough," Sookie dismissed with a laugh and a wave of her hand. "Closer than before anyway."

Rory only chuckled in response. She shifted her attention behind Sookie, noting that her other guest was partially hidden behind the lush green leaves of a tall potted plant. But if Rory hadn't already been expecting him, she would have instantly recognized him by the knit cap she could see on the top of his head.

"Hi, Jackson," she said with a wave. He was just about to respond to her greeting when he was suddenly mowed over by his wife's excitement.

"Oh my God! Look at her!" Sookie burst before her husband even had a chance to utter a greeting. "Let me see that baby!"

Sookie snatched Ellie out of her hands without a moment's hesitation. The baby looked momentarily surprised at suddenly being ripped from her mother's arms, but it only took a fraction of a moment before she was all smiles from the attention she was getting. Sookie was introducing herself in a babyish tone of voice while bouncing her in her arms, and if Ellie's giggles were any indication, it seemed like she was enjoying this new found friendship.

"Hi, Ellie. I'm Sookie. It's so nice to meet you. I'm a friend of your mommy's. Yes, I am. Yes, I am."

"Not to interrupt the lovely moment taking place out on the stoop, but I can see foliage turning brown in front of my face," said Jackson, his voice raising from behind the plant. Rory jumped into action, stepping to the side and opening the door widely for them.

"Sorry!" she said with a laugh. "Come on in guys."

"Wow," Sookie said, looking around the brightly lit open living area with a smile as she stepped inside. Behind her, Jackson was struggling to get the plant inside the door "Rory, this place is beautiful."

"Thanks," she said. It had better be with the shocking amount of money Logan had ended up putting into it, but she didn't think that would be an appropriate comment to say out loud. "It's a little empty at the moment. And messy. We haven't quite gotten completely moved in yet."

They were still missing a dining room table, and the chairs that had been delivered just the other day were standing flush against the far left wall. The built in shelves surrounding the fireplace in the formal living area were empty save from some haphazardly stacked books that Rory hadn't even had the time to sort through yet. She only set them there to get them out of their boxes, of which there were many. Everywhere.

But, still, the house was beautiful. It was so much brighter than it had been the first time Logan had called her to come see it. They had taken out most of the walls on the parlor floor, opening the area up to let the light shine in and getting rid of the slightly claustrophobic feeling that had originally overwhelmed her while walking through the halls. They'd replaced the old dark oak trim that only dated the place with fresh clean white, but they'd still managed to keep some of the other original touches to the house, like the hand carved fireplace and the ornate paneling on the ceiling.

The kitchen was gorgeous. Logan had fought her tooth and nail on it. He'd poured a huge amount of money into, insisting on a gourmet range, a huge fridge, wine storage, and all kinds of appliances that she deemed overkill. At first Rory hadn't seen the point of it. She had never been all that interested in kitchens. She never really cooked much anyway, and as long as there was a refrigerator and a microwave, she was pretty satisfied. But, now that she had a big gorgeous kitchen with tall white cabinets and quartz countertops, she suddenly realized why some people were so obsessed with them.

It made her want to cook, a feeling that she hadn't had since she and Logan would go down to his parents' place at the Vineyard together to grill lobsters. It was especially fun to show it off to someone like Sookie who would really appreciate it. Though, having been to Sookie's place in Tarrytown, she knew that hers was actually still pretty average in comparison.

"Oh that's okay," said Sookie. "You know there's no need to pull out the red carpet for us."

"Still," she said. "I'll have to have you guys back later when it's a bit more put together."

"Well, I won't miss an opportunity to come see this cutie again," Sookie said, looking back down at Ellie as she started grabbing at the beads of her necklace and shaking them in her hand. "No I won't. No I won't."

"So where do you want this?" Jackson asked, cutting in over his wife while she fawned over the baby girl in her arms. He wrapped his hand around the trunk of the plant he'd brought into the house - the entire reason for their visit today.

"I was thinking the kitchen," said Rory. "That's where we have the most natural light. They need a lot of light, right?"

Jackson nodded.

"They need a lot of light," he confirmed. He bent down to pick up the large pot and started following Rory toward the back of the house into the kitchen. "They also need to be fed with some good fertilizer every two to three months. Don't take it outside until it's over thirty-two degrees. And keep the soil moist but not wet. They're very easy to overwater."

"Light, fertilizer, keep warm, don't over water," Rory repeated as she led him into the kitchen. "I think I can handle that. Sounds easier than a baby anyway."

"You'd be surprised…" Jackson said with a grunt as he carried the large pot through the living area and the dining room toward the kitchen. "At least babies tell you when they're hungry."

"Right…" Rory said with a nervous laugh.

She was suddenly a little concerned that perhaps this hadn't been the best idea. After all, she wasn't very well known for her green thumb, and Jackson made a very good point. Ellie was pretty impossible to simply forget about for a few weeks. Still, she wanted to do this. She would simply need to figure out a way to make herself responsible for it. If her mom could manage to keep Paul Anka alive into his twilight years, then she should be able to handle one plant.

As they walked into the kitchen, Rory directed Jackson to place the pot in the corner by one of the floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the deck and garden area in the back of the house. Sookie immediately started fawning over the stove, the one thing that was capable of tearing her attention away from Ellie. Jackson gave her a few more strict instructions about care, and once all the technicalities were over they were left just to catch up.

"Do you guys want to see the rest of the house?" she asked, and they started their tour downstairs on the garden floor.


The commute from The New York Standard building in Midtown to Logan's new house in Brooklyn Heights was about forty-five to fifty minutes during rush hour. It was a long time to sit in a car for a five mile journey, and most of it was spent sitting completely stationary in mind numbing gridlock traffic. Still, it was far superior to the two and a half hour biweekly commute he had been making for the past few weeks, and Logan was kept from going completely insane by the fact that he wasn't the one driving in it.

He was looking down at his phone when the passenger door to his left suddenly opened. He'd been keeping himself occupied reading a report that had been sent to him just as he was leaving the office, and he hadn't even noticed that they had reached their destination until the light and sounds from the street suddenly burst through the back of the car.

"Home sweet home," came a friendly and familiar voice from outside the car. Logan smiled at the sound, not only from the familiarity of the voice, but also from the sound of the words themselves.

He quickly locked the screen of his phone and reached over to grab his briefcase from the seat next to him. As he stepped out of the black town car that had carried him here, he reached out to shake the hand of the man who was holding the door open for him.

"Thanks, Frank," he said, the smile still spread out over his face.

"I'll see you here same time tomorrow morning?" the man asked.

He was still as friendly and upbeat as he had been when he was driving Logan around in college. The hair at the sides of his head had started to go a bit grey, and there were some lines around his eyes that hadn't been there before, but overall he was exactly the same as Logan remembered him.

"I'll be here," Logan responded with a nod.

"You give that baby a kiss for me, now," Frank said pointedly as he walked back to the driver's seat and opened the door.

"I will," said Logan. "Have a good night."

Logan stood on the sidewalk for a moment and waved as Frank pulled away. He turned around and took a few steps forward until he reached the stoop of his house. He had a slight skip in his step as he bounced up the stairs and slid his key into the front door, and when he opened it and walked into the house he let loose with the cliche that he'd been anxiously waiting to say since the moment he had left that morning.

"Honey, I'm home!" he cheered enthusiastically as he stepped through the threshold. He shrugged his jacket off and threw it over the railing, and his eyebrows raised as he heard the sound of voices carrying down the stairs from the living room above them.

"We're upstairs!" Rory's voice called out to him.

Logan wasn't aware that there was going to be a we. He was slightly disappointed, not because he was upset that Rory had invited company over per se, but mostly because he was kind of hoping that they might be able to pick up where they left off that morning. Sadly, it seemed like it was going to have to wait once again.

He started climbing up the stairs, the voices becoming clearer as he went. He didn't recognize them, but the familiarity with which they were talking to Rory suggested that she knew them very well. When he reached the top of the stairs, he hung a quick right and walked into the family living room that Rory had clearly been spending the day putting together.

His eyes landed on the sight of a bubbly plus-sized woman with long auburn hair bouncing Ellie in her arms as she stood in the center of the room. To her right was was a tall man donning a knit cap and a beard. The woman smiled at him as he walked into the room, and Rory walked around the sectional to greet him with a quick kiss.

"Hey," she said. "You're home early. I wasn't expecting you for another half hour."

"Yeah, things were a bit slow today," Logan answered. Rory grabbed his arm and started pulling him into the room toward her guests.

"Well, that's good cause that means you can finally meet Sookie and Jackson." Rory guided him around the couch until he was standing within arms distance of her guests. "Sookie, Jackson, this is Logan. Logan, you remember me mentioning Sookie and Jackson."

"Of course," Logan said with a smile. "The famous Sookie. I've been regaled with stories of your famous Risotto for years. It's nice to finally meet you."

"It's nice to finally meet you too!" Sookie replied with a gush. "I can't believe it's taken so long."

When Logan reached out to shake her hand, Ellie suddenly seemed to lose interest in the necklace that she had been tugging at around the woman's neck. The moment that she noticed him standing there, she started to let out a series of grunts and babbles, holding her hands out to him. Logan reached forward for her, and Sookie handed her over to him. He planted a kiss on the baby's cheek and turned his attention over to Jackson.

"Jackson," he said, reaching out to shake his hand as well. "Good to meet you."

"Likewise," the man said. "This is a great place you've got here."

"Thanks," Logan answered, shifting Ellie on his hip. "Are you planning to stay for dinner? We're a bit short in the grocery area, but we were planning on ordering in. You'd be more than welcome."

"Oh no," Sookie responded. "We were actually just about to get going. If we don't get home soon, Davey will need to handle dinner, and we'll never hear the end of it."

"Well thanks for coming, guys," Rory said as they all started walking back over to the stairs and heading to the front door. "I really appreciate your help. More than you know."

"Happy to help," said Jackson. "You can call me if you have any problems."

"I will," Rory answered. "And we promise to have you guys back once we have more than one couch. And you know… a table... and food and... stuff."

"Sounds like a plan," Sookie said with a laugh. "Bye Logan. Bye Ellie!"

Sookie gave one more tickle to Ellie's tummy while Logan held her in his arms. She giggled in response, and Rory opened the front door. Their guests gave one more round of goodbyes, and Rory waved at them as she watched them climb into a pick up truck parked miraculously just a few feet down the sidewalk.

"So that was a Sookie and a Jackson," Logan stated as she closed the front door. Rory nodded in response.

"That was a Sookie and Jackson," she confirmed.

"I didn't know you were planning on having guests today," he said. "Was this a planned visit?"

"Well… funny you should ask," said Rory with a smile. She took a step to the left, walking through the living area. Logan took the hint and started following behind her. "I've mentioned to you that Jackson is a produce supplier, right?"

Logan reached into the depths of his memory and started nodding.

"Yes," he said, slowly. "Now that you mention it, I seem to remember a story about sleeping in zucchini patches and a lot of questionable cross breeding of fruits."

"Right," Rory laughed. "Well, I've been wanting to give you a house warming present…"

"A house warming present?" Logan asked with an amused smile as they crossed through the empty dining room into the kitchen. "I don't think the people who moved into the house are the ones who are supposed to buy the house warming presents."

"Will you hush?" Rory scolded. Logan let out one small laugh before zipping his lips. "I've been wanting to get you a house warming present, and I didn't know what to get. But then my mom and I were gorging ourselves on nachos a few weeks ago when it was Mexican night at Al's and I thought of the perfect thing. So, I called Jackson to see if he might be able to help me out and...ta da!"

Rory threw her arms out as she gestured to a plant sitting in the corner of the kitchen. It was tall and lush with branches of long green elliptical leaves sprouting off from a thin but sturdy brown trunk. He recognized the plant instantly, despite the fact that it was significantly smaller than the ones he was used to and it was sitting inside of a large ceramic pot.

"It's an avocado tree!"

Logan didn't need the explanation. But, considering the fact that he was having a hard time coming up with words to say, he didn't mind listening to it.

"I know it's probably smaller than the one you had in California," she continued. "And you know… it's kind of stuck in a pot considering the New York winters. And Jackson said that it might take a couple years to fruit… if it even fruits at all. But… I thought it was a good present anyway. Cause you were so excited about that avocado tree and it was supposed to be ours. And I know that you don't really associate me with that tree anymore because of...well… time and... things. But, when I used to think about what our lives would have looked like if I had said yes, I always imagined making guacamole from that tree and… Well… I thought that even though that tree never ended up being ours, this tree could be ours. And it might not be perfect and it might ever yield any guacamole but… it's ours."

Rory turned around to look at his reaction, but his eyes were still glued on the tree. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she was biting her lip, anxious to see what her reaction would be. He knew it was somewhat of a gamble. Talking about that period of their lives was always somewhat of a gamble. It was still a touchy subject in so many ways.

Logan took a deep breath. He tore his eyes away from the plant in the corner, and looked over at Rory who was still watching him with anticipation. As he walked closer to her, he could see the anxiety start to leave her expression, and when he brushed a hand against her cheek, a smile formed on her face.

He leaned down and pressed a tender kiss against her lips. When he broke away, he kept his forehead pressed against hers and gazed into her eyes.

"I love it. Thank you," he said. "I'll make sure to keep it alive as long as I can."

"Good," Rory said with a grateful exhale. "Cause I don't trust myself to do it alone."

Logan kissed her again. He knew that Rory was referring to her literal lack of talent when it came to keeping plants alive, but he also knew that there was a double meaning behind their words, one that he would keep unsaid. It felt a little more poignant that way.

They stayed in each other's embrace for a few more seconds until Ellie started squirming and kicking in his arms. Rory took a step away from him, looking down at her with a smile before taking her.

"She's probably getting hungry," she said. "And as a matter of fact, so am I."

"Now you've got me wanting tacos…" said Logan as he watched Rory walk over to the elevator behind the staircase and press the button to take her up to the nursery on the top floor.

"Sounds good to me," she said. "Extra gauc."


TBC….

AN: Hope you guys liked it. Pure fluffiness. Some light smut. :) There will be one more chapter before the epilogue. And then I do promise I already have spinoffs in my mind to start working on. Sorry this one took a while to get out. As always, please leave a review. I am like an avocado tree. Must be fertilized. Lol.

Thanks!