AN: Alright. I know that the last thing I need to be doing right now is starting another fic. But, I couldn't help myself. This was kind of born as a joke during a conversation with Caro1414 regarding how all my fic ideas are just too friggin angsty and what I really need to do is just write a Hallmark level cheesefest. So… that is exactly what I am doing. I am writing a Hallmark Christmas movie Rogan cheesefest in May and I have NO regrets. Hopefully this will keep you all emotionally sound inbetween MtG updates.

Chapter One

The house was abuzz with the undeniably jolly spirit of Christmas. Cheerful music was emanating from the jazz quartet standing underneath the domed stained glass ceiling next to the tree. The room was lit with the ambient glow of candles, firelight, and twinkle lights lining garlands spread across almost every surface in the house. Glasses of prosecco garnished with sugared cranberries were being served on silver trays. Dozens of guests were dressed to the nines, And there was an ever present smell of evergreen and gingerbread wafting through the halls.

All in all it was a dream. At least, it seemed to be a dream to everyone in attendance. Everyone but him, that is.

Logan Huntzberger had never been a fan of his parents' lavish cocktail parties. He hadn't been a fan as a child when his mother would force his unruly hair into a slicked back part on the top of his head with an unreasonable amount of hair gel and shove him into a tiny tailored suit with a bowtie, and he wasn't a fan today as a thirty-five year old man who combed his own hair and picked his own suits. And the fact that this was the annual Christmas party only added insult to injury.

He'd never been a fan of Christmas. In all honesty, he never understood Christmas. He never understood why people went to such lengths to put on a massive show one month out of the year and go about pretending that the world was this wonderful magical place full of love and good will. The world was a lion's den, and no matter of pretending otherwise was ever going to change that fact.

Still, pretending was something that he'd become wonderfully skilled at over the years. As a young boy, he would wake up on Christmas morning and pretend to be shocked to receive the array of gifts that he'd overtly asked for placed under the tree. He'd pretend to believe in some kind of omniscient immortal fat man who lived in the North Pole and went around to give gifts to the seven billion people all over the world in a single night. He'd pretend to like gingerbread and eggnog and honey baked ham because it made the household cooks happy to think that he did. And now, he pretended to like coming to the endless December cocktail parties.

He pretended very well.

"Logan!"

At the sound of his name, Logan turned toward a group of older men to his right, men that he'd known for as long as he could remember. They were friends of his father's. Old colleagues that always made an appearance at these kinds of parties. Their presence was as constant and reliable as the inevitable argument his parents would dissolve into at the end of the night, or the journey his uncle would make to the car with his messy and belligerent thirty-year-old wife once the bar closed down. They were the same men who had always given him a hard time growing up. The ones who teased him for getting into trouble in his youth. The ones who made passive aggressive comments about his abilities. The ones who made a habit of undercutting him in front of his father constantly.

Or at the very least, the ones who used to undercut him in front of his father constantly, Of course, now that he was practically running the business himself, they all worshipped at his feet.

"Frank," he greeted, slapping an effortlessly convincing smile on his face and reaching out to shake the man's hand. "It's good to see you. How are you?"

"Oh I can't complain," the older man returned with a smile. "A little surprised to see you here tonight."

"Why's that?" Logan asked, keeping his tone pleasant and his face nonplussed. Though, admittedly, he was more than a little confused about the comment.

"Well with the rate you're sweeping over the eastern seaboard these days, I half expected you to be busy standing on a boat crossing the Delaware."

Logan let out a breathy and adequately "modest" laugh before appeasing the man with a nod of acknowledgement.

"Our acquisitions department has been pretty busy the last few months."

"Busy?" said Frank. "The way Mitchum tells it, there won't be a single independently owned newspaper left in New England before he retires."

"Well, knowing my Dad, he'll probably live forever and never retire just to spite me," Logan teased. "So, that gives me plenty of time."

"I heard you just made a deal with The Middlefield Messenger."

"We just signed the paperwork today," answered Logan with a nod. Frank was on the verge of asking for more details. However, before he could speak they were interrupted by the appearance of an older blonde woman in a burgundy velvet cocktail dress.

"Now, now, gentleman," came the saccharine voice of his mother as she sidled up to them. Her hand landed on his bicep, and Logan smiled down at her in acknowledgement. "This is a Christmas party. I think that's enough shop talk for one night…"

"Hello, Mom," Logan greeted, leaning down to press a light kiss on the woman's cheek as the rest of the men around him all took a moment to greet their hostess.

"Hello, dear. You look handsome," she said, reaching up to adjust his tie - the tie that to the best of his knowledge wasn't even remotely crooked to begin with. He suppressed a groan, and Shira then turned her attention to her guests. "I hope you all don't mind if I steal my son for a moment."

"Of course not, Shira," said Frank. Though, his mother didn't bother waiting for a response before threading her hand through her arm and pulling him away.

"There's someone I want you to meet," she said as they walked toward a group of people listening to his father regale them with some fantastical - and likely exaggerated - story about who knows what. "They're friends of ours from Paris. René and Marie Clemenceau. René owns about twenty newspapers in the Northeast of France and he's trying to break out into Belgium before he retires… and sells... "

As he looked ahead, he began looking over the crowd with a more scrutinizing eye. There was his father of course, and his sister and brother-in-law. The older couple they were speaking to, however, was entirely unrecognizable to him. The man was on the short side. He was thin with a head of well-coifed salt and pepper hair and a chin covered with a stubbly beard. His wife was taller than him in her five inch stiletto heels. Her black hair was pinned up in a tight french twist, and despite her age she was still stunningly beautiful. Almost as stunningly beautiful as the young woman standing next to her.

She looked like her mother. They shared a hair color and a tall slim frame. Though, she didn't look nearly as harsh as the older woman. Her hair fell around her near bare shoulders in long loose waves, covering the thin spaghetti straps holding up the slinky black cocktail dress wrapped around her curves. In any other context, Logan would be thrilled to see such a stunning young woman. Yet, it was hard to appreciate such a figure of beauty when it was so abundantly clear that his mother was up to something.

"They're here with their daughter, Odette," Shira continued, trying desperately to sound nonchalant. "She was meant to spend her holiday in Monaco with her boyfriend, but apparently she caught him in the hot tub with the maid… What a shame… such a pretty girl..."

Logan cleared his throat to hide the sigh that he wasn't able to repress. His mother had been trying to marry him off to a "suitable young woman" since he was in college. It had all started with Beverly Fallon, and the parade of gorgeous young bachelorettes hadn't stopped since. He knew that he frustrated her to no end. He knew that she looked at his inability to commit to a serious relationship as his biggest liability. He knew that she wanted grandchildren, that she wanted a huge wedding, that she wanted him to live a life comparable to his parents'.

Logan however, would rather die a bachelor than invite that kind of dysfunction into his life. In his mind, monogamy was unnatural. Bringing children into a dying planet was insane. And love was a myth. People who pretended otherwise were only fooling themselves. If someone ever tried to show Logan a happy marriage, he would show them a couple of liars or idiots. Logan was a great many things, but a liar wasn't one of them. And he definitely wasn't an idiot.

"There he is!" his father's voice boomed as they approached the crowd.

Mitchum clapped him on the back as he joined them, and Logan found his eyes meeting his sisters instantly. Honor sent him a knowing look over the martini glass she'd just brought to his lips, twitching her eyebrows quickly and hiding her smirk along the rim of her glass.

"René, this is my son, Logan," Mitchum continued, prompting Logan to reach out to the man for a handshake. "Logan is this René Clemenceau, his wife Marie, and their daughter Odette."

"Nice to meet you," he said to the older man before he released his grip and a smaller, softer hand slipped into his own.

His eyes met Odette's as he brought her hand up to his lips to brush a gentle kiss over her knuckle as their parents continued their conversation. Next to him, he could feel his mother practically bursting with excitement over the sight, but Logan could only feel a growing sense of dread. The sultry smile on the face of the woman across from him did absolutely nothing to stir his desires, and with every subtle comment about his eligibility Logan actually found himself growing more and more put off at the sight of her.

"How long will you be in New York?" Shira eventually asked, directing her question at Marie. Though, Logan knew that it wasn't Marie's presence in The States that she was interested in.

"We leave after the New Year," the older woman replied in a light accent. "We are staying at The Pierre."

"The Pierre! How lovely," Shira exclaimed. "You know… Logan's apartment isn't very far from The Pierre. Is it dear?"

Logan forced a smile on his face.

"Uh, no…" he said. "No, it's not."

"Well, you should show Odette around the city before they leave," she said. "Take her to see whatever it is you young people like to see."

"Of course," said Logan through gritted teeth. "I'd love to."

"Oh!" Shira exclaimed as she turned her attention to Odette. "Have you seen Hamilton? You simply must see Hamilton while you're here. I never expected to like such a thing, but it truly is absolutely wonderful…"

He took a sip of his drink, giving his lips something to do other than to curl into a scowl as his mother continued to talk about Mitchum's friends at The Nederlander Organization and how they were always able to get them incredible seats at the drop of a hat. Odette made eyes at him while their parents continued to drone on, and Logan tried his hardest to tune them out. He could vaguely register his father and René going on about the European market and his mother coming up with even more dates for him and Odette to go on during their limited stay in New York, but all he could think about was devising a way to escape.

Thankfully, in that precise moment his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He seized the opportunity immediately, pulling it out and breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that it was his assistant on the phone.

"Excuse me," he said, pretending to be annoyed with the disruption. Though, in reality he was thrilled to have an excuse to finally put this night to an end. "Duty calls."

"What do you mean you're leaving!?" Shira asked, her tone incredulous.

She was following him down the halls of the house as he made his way to the coat closet tucked around the corner from where the majority of the guests were still mingling. Honor was trailing along behind her, trying her hardest to get their mother to calm down and come back to the party. Though, it didn't seem to be working.

"I have to be at the office as soon as possible," said Logan, looking at his watch. "If I leave now I can head in tomorrow first thing in the morning."

"You can't drive to New York in this weather! The roads are probably iced over," said Shira, gesturing out the window to the chunky white flakes of snow falling from the sky.

"Well, it's a good thing I brought the G-class then," he replied, referring to the black Mercedes-Benz SUV parked in his parents' driveway.

Of course, the use of his all-terrain vehicle had been a deliberate plan. All it took was a brief glance at the weather app on his phone before leaving the city to make him realize that he had no other choice. Driving a sedan would only leave him vulnerable to being trapped in Hartford for the night. Or, God forbid, the entire weekend. And that was the last thing he wanted to happen.

"Besides, tomorrow is Saturday," Shira continued. "What could possibly be so important that you need to rush off from our Christmas party to go into the office on a Saturday? I swear, you are getting more and more like your father every day."

Something twinged inside Logan at the sound of those words. But he shoved the uncomfortable feeling deep down within him, landing on annoyance rather than hurt.

"Well, it's a good thing that I don't have a wife or children to disappoint then, isn't it?" he asked, making a clear dig at her earlier attempt to fix him up with the daughter of their French guests. His mother bristled in response to the comment, and even Honor looked at him a bit reproachingly.

"No, only a mother," Shira responded, laying the guilt on as thickly as she possibly could. "But since you mentioned it…"

"Mom…" Honor sighed. Though, she knew it was in vain. They both knew there was no stopping her now. Logan's little comment had backfired, and all he could do was take a deep breath and nod as his mother started to lay into him for his lifestyle choices.

"I don't know why you insist on living this…. hedonistic lifestyle of yours…" Shira started, prompting Logan's eyebrows to shoot up in response.

"Hedonistic?" he asked. His mother, however, didn't pay any mind to the interruption.

"You're thirty-five years old. You're not getting any younger, you know," said Shira. "It's time for you to settle down. Have children. If you were a woman, your time would be running out at this point. Have you ever thought about that?"

"Have I ever thought about being a woman?" Logan asked. "No, I haven't. I'm pretty confident in my identity as a cis-gendered man."

"Logan," Shira warned. Apparently she was not at all amused by his lip. "There is a beautiful young lady in that room waiting for you to ask her to dance, and you are about to walk away and leave her here all by herself."

"I didn't invite her here!" said Logan, reaching into the closet and pulling out his black wool overcoat and grey Burberry scarf.

"Well, that doesn't matter," said Shira.

Logan's mouth dropped open as he wrapped his scarf around his neck and slipped his arms through the sleeves of his coat.

"Yes, it does matter!" he countered. "Mom, I am not interested in Odette Clemenceau. Okay? I am not interested in getting married. I am not interested in having children. Ever."

"But - "

"No buts," said Logan, cutting her off. "And as you so graciously pointed out a few seconds ago, I am a thirty-five year old man. Even if I was interested in those things - which I'm not - the last thing I need is my Mommy setting up my dates for me. I am perfectly capable of getting those on my own."

"If you can call those 'dates…'" Shira muttered under her breath as her eyes shifted to the side.

Apparently, she could no longer stand to even look at him. Logan allowed a momentary feeling a guilt to wash over him at the sight. As annoying as he found his mother's constant meddling, he knew that it wasn't entirely born out of selfishness. There was also a part of her that just wanted to see him happy and settled. And in her mind, happy and settled meant married and procreating. She didn't know anything else. She didn't understand any other way of living.

"I'll call you when I get back to the city," said Logan as he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

Shira muttered a half-hearted goodbye after she surrendered to the fact that she wasn't going to talk him out of getting into his car and driving away. She turned around and started walking back to the party, leaving him standing there alone with his sister as he started fastening the buttons on his double breasted overcoat.

"Would it really be so terrible?" Honor asked.

Logan flicked his eyes up from his coat and looked at her somewhat strangely. He was a little surprised to hear the probing question come from her of all people. Though, admittedly her tone was more curious in nature than pushy.

"Going out with Odette?" he asked. "Probably not. But I'd much rather avoid getting the parentals entangled in my personal life."

"I don't mean Odette," said Honor with a sigh. "I mean all of it. Is the idea of getting married and having kids really that repulsive to you?"

He shifted on his feet as he fixed his sister with an incredulous stare. Of all the people he would expect this kind of conversation from, Honor was the last on his list. She was the one who had always been on her side. She was the one who usually helped him to get their parents off of his back at moments like these. He almost felt betrayed by the question.

"How can you even ask me that?" he questioned, narrowing his eyes at her slightly. "You grew up in this house too. You of all people should know how miserable marriage can be."

"I'm married, Logan," Honor reminded, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, you are," said Logan with a nod. "Need I remind you that I'm the one you call every time you want to murder your husband? Which - by the way - happens pretty much weekly. So, excuse me if I don't feel like inviting that frustration into my own life."

A strange look fell over Honor's face at his words. She was looking at him almost as if she was studying him, searching him for something. There was a touch of… sadness... behind her eyes, one that was making Logan more and more uncomfortable with every millisecond that passed between them.

"I call you to rant when I get frustrated because marriage is hard," said Honor. "Being a Mom is hard. And sometimes you get frustrated. Sometimes you need a sounding board so you don't bottle things up and drive yourself crazy. But... do you really think that I'm not happy to have Josh in my life? To have my kids?"

"I…"

Logan trailed off. He wasn't able to finish his thought. His mind had actually gone blank at the question. The truth was, he'd always used his sister's marriage as yet another example as to why the entire institution was something that he didn't want to get himself involved with. Seeing her standing there telling him that he'd entirely misread her entire life was more than a little disconcerting.

"I am happy," Honor continued. "I wouldn't trade it for the world, even with all the bad moments. They're worth it. I'd rather live through every single bad moment a dozen more times then wake up in a world where I can't climb into bed next to my husband every night or see the faces of my kids on Christmas morning. You don't see the good moments. You don't see the little things. It's much better living it than looking it at it, Logan."

Logan cleared his throat as he shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He dug his hands into his pockets and pulled out a pair of fur lined leather gloves to occupy himself so that he felt less raw and exposed under his sister's gaze.

"Well…" he said. "Thank you for the wisdom, Mr. Sondheim. But I need to be on my way."

He left his sister standing there, knowing that it probably wasn't the best way to say goodbye when leaving into a snow storm late on a Friday night. Still, he wasn't in the mood to say anything else. Honor was the one person he could always count on to be on his side. The idea that she was going to start pestering him to settle down as well was almost too much for him to take.

"You're welcome, Mr. Scrooge!" she yelled after him. But, Logan didn't respond. Instead, he quietly slipped through the patio door in a sneaky exit from the party and made his way to the car.

It had only been about ten minutes before Logan started to regret his decision. Ten minutes had gotten him to the end of his parents' street, a drive that usually took no more than two. At this point, he'd been on the road for an hour and a half, and he hadn't even made it to New Haven.

A semi-truck had apparently flipped over on the I-91, causing a traffic jam that he'd been caught in for twenty-five minutes before he'd been able to pull off on the next exit. Taking some back roads to avoid the mess on the interstate had seemed like a good idea at the time, but it hadn't taken very long for him to realize that wasn't a good idea at all.

The darkness of the night already made it difficult to see on the winding rural roads. They were poorly lit, surrounded by dense forest on both sides, and the curves and hills popped up so abruptly that he would have likely been riding the brakes even in ideal weather. The only plus side to the snow that had accumulated on the ground around him was that it was reflecting what little light there was, making it somewhat easier to see his environment. It was cancelled out, however, by the fact that the snow floating in the air around him made it almost impossible to see more than fifteen feet in front of his windshield.

"Shit!" he grumbled as he came upon yet another abrupt curve to the right.

Thankfully, with a practiced hand and the reliable four-wheel-drive on his Mercedes, he was able to avoid catastrophe. He turned the wheel gently to the right as he felt his car start to slip in that direction, and after just a brief little skid, he was successfully back on track, driving slow and straight as an arrow. He breathed a sigh of relief and gripped his steering wheel tightly as he tried to calm the pounding in his heart.

"In one mile turn right on to Connecticut Route Sixty-Eight."

Logan sighed at the robotic voice of his GPS app. Another mile at this pace felt like it would take him all night, and he was getting anxious to get back onto a road with more than two lanes. He glanced down at the screen, checking to see if there were any more sharp turns in his immediate future, but as it turned out the action seemed to be another in a long line of poor decisions for the evening.

The moment he looked back up from the road, he was suddenly met with two tiny balls of light shining at him from the middle of the road. It only took a millisecond for him to realize what he was looking at, but by the time he did, it was already too late to slam on his breaks.

"Fuck!" he cursed as he turned his wheel to the right again. This time, however, he moved far more frantically and dramatically than he had just moments before.

Even the all wheel drive on his trusty Mercedes wasn't enough to save him this time. He slid over a patch of ice, causing him to lose all control of his steering wheel as he started rapidly approaching the edge of the road. He tried slamming on his breaks, but the ice was too slick and the vehicle moved as if he hadn't done anything at all. The next thing he knew, the two tiny balls of light in his field of vision had been replaced by the sight of a tall wide tree trunk, and he braced himself as the hood of his car made contact.

The airbag burst open in front of him just as he jerked forward from the force of the impact, catching him in a painful yet far less damaging hold than his dashboard would have given him. His head whipped back and slammed against the back of his seat on the rebound, but all in all he was okay. He'd suffered far more than some bruising on his chest and a sore neck in his past, and he was pretty confident in his ability to physically recover.

It was the non-physical problems that he was far more concerned with at the moment. He sat there for a few seconds, trying to regulate his breath and recover from the shock. But, the sight of the deer that he'd swerved to avoid making her merry way through the patch of trees in front of him only served to enrage him. This was all that damn animal's fault, and yet he was the one entirely unable to go on his merry way.

It was ten-thirty in the evening during an almost white out snow storm. He was in the middle of buttfuck Connecticut miles away from the interstate. And by the looks of his surroundings, there wasn't a public building anywhere near.

He was going to have to call the police. He was going to have to call a tow truck. He didn't need to climb out of the car to see that the damage to the hood was considerable. There was no backing up and driving away from this. He was stuck here. He was stuck until someone came to pull him out and give him a ride somewhere - anywhere. It would really help him to formulate a plan if he knew where the hell he was exactly.

He lifted his hands up to rub at his eyes for a moment, and when he reopened them they were drawn to a reflective glimmer in his peripheral vision. Standing just a couple feet in front of him to his left was a sign. It was a small sign, a concise sign, a familiar looking sign. He'd seen many of its kind in his days, too many of them to count. But the sight of it was somewhat of a relief. It didn't have that much information, but it had some, which was better than nothing. It was that unmistakably specific hue of highway green, and it answered the question regarding where exactly he was with just a few white letters and a single number.

Stars Hollow 5

TBC…

AN: Well I hope you all like it. I know that Logan is being so irresponsible here driving to NY in that weather. But, you know… plots. Lol. They need instigating action.

I promise to keep this one an angst-lite fluff fest for the most part. Though, anyone who has seen a Hallmark movie knows that there's always at least one obstacle for our favorite couples to overcome. Haha. I know you probably have questions about Rory and why they never met at Yale. Details will be revealed in time. But, this is a complete AU after season four.

Please review and let me know what you think!