AN: The last thing I should be doing is starting another story, but alas...it is in my head and here we are. This story is outlined at about 10 chapters + an epilogue...so it won't be a long one. It is completely AU and I will outline a few more specifics at the end of the next chapter, but I think you'll be able to put enough together through this.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls

June 18, 2006

"Are you sure it isn't too much?" Rory exhaled as she smoothed her hands over the lace bodice of her wedding dress, her fingers lingering over the thick satin sash in a champagne colour that she wasn't completely sure of. There wasn't really much she could do if her mother, grandmother, best friend or her future sister in law did take issue with the dress, because it was happening at this point. Of course it was happening…they had been planning, or rather Honor, her mother and her grandmother had been planning this event for months. Since her high school sweetheart turned college sweetheart had slipped an enormous cushion cut diamond on her finger almost eight months earlier. Of course, Rory had thought that they might get engaged before either of them graduated, it still took her by surprise.

"No," Lorelai Gilmore cooed. Sure, it had never really something she had considered, that her daughter would want to get married so young, but she remembered when the young man she had known all of his life came to ask her for permission to marry Rory, and any doubts that Lorelai had were gone as he talked about what she meant to him. "Logan will love it."

"He would be a fool not to," Honor interrupted, "you look amazing. It is ridiculous that I couldn't eat for months before my wedding and here you are…I saw you eating a cheeseburger last week and you still look like this," she looked her up and down and smiled. "I was on a diet of cigarettes and Diet Coke in the months leading up to my wedding."

"At least it was just Diet Coke," Lorelai joked. "But," she looked from her daughter to Miss Celine seriously, "is it comfortable? Are you happy with the fit?"

"The fit is fine," Miss Celine interrupted, "besides, the last thing she cares about is the fit, she and her husband to be will be more concerned with getting it off of her at the end of the night which is why we chose a zipper."

"Celine!" Emily Gilmore warned from where she was sitting in the dressing room of her master bedroom.

Rory blushed and rolled her eyes, turning to her best friend with her hands on her cheeks, her fingers splayed so the three carat diamond sparkled in the light, "I can't believe this," Rory squealed to Lane, "I'm getting married."

"Tell me about it!" Lane looked at the dress and then noticed the smile on Rory's face fade a bit, "I'm so happy for you. You look stunning and you and that fiancé of yours are sickening!"

"You would tell me…" Rory paused for a moment and looked at her seriously. There were of course moments where Rory thought maybe it was too soon. What was the rush? She was going to be a foreign correspondent and he had just finished filming his first movie. He was on track to graduate from Yale and then he would follow his dream of taking Hollywood by storm. Of course finishing his degree was to appease his father. He had already destroyed Mitchum by not going into the family business, so this was his way of placating the man. Not that it did any good; Mitchum hardly had any relationship with his children. After his wife died there had been a revolving door of women, none of whom he got serious with and a slightly more stable parade of live in caretakers for Logan and his sister. They had met Rory Gilmore, an only child…the daughter of the infamous Lorelai Gilmore who had given birth at sixteen and by seventeen had left the Hartford mansion she knew as home for a little town in Connecticut. Although she had left the mansion and gotten a job as a maid at an inn, Lorelai hadn't kept her daughter from her grandparents, and that is how Rory had as as mere five year old ended up in the orbit of the Huntzberger family. She met Logan who was two years older than her when he was eight and she was six. His mother had died before they met, but when Rory's father had died unexpectedly in a motorcycle accident, he and Rory found themselves members of a club that no one else wanted to be a part of. What had started as friendship had bloomed into romance by the time Logan was graduating from Chilton with Rory a couple of grades behind him. After his first year at Yale he took some time off, sailing around the world with friends and he returned just in time for Rory to start her freshman year. It was around then that things went from being serious to being serious and Rory and Logan had moved into his off-campus apartment, much to the chagrin of Lorelai who somehow managed to keep her mouth shut. She may not have wanted her daughter to grow up too quickly, but she also knew that her daughter was smart, and her daughter loved Logan more than anything.

"There is nothing to tell," Lane shook her head, "you two are so perfect it is sickening!"

Rory tried on the dress that had been made for her rehearsal dinner next. That particular event was taking place on Mitchum Huntzberger's yacht. The one he had recently bought to replace the boat Logan had sunk during his year off, she hadn't been sure when he had suggested it if this was another dig at Logan or if he genuinely wanted to have the party there, but being the people pleaser she had always been, Rory went along with the suggestion and agreed to almost everything Mitchum and his event planner suggested. The only thing she hadn't agreed to was inviting her paternal grandparents to the party. She didn't care what anyone said, they weren't invited to anything wedding related and there was no amount of pushing that would change that. Although Honor had suggested they go out for dinner as a group, Rory had declined politely. She wanted to get home to New Haven. Logan needed to leave for a couple of days to do press for his movie, and she wanted to see him before she left. Lorelai would drive Lane home and they would all see each other in a couple of days for the bachelorette party and the wedding would be there before she knew it. All Rory really wanted to do was have the whirlwind of the next few weeks end and then she and Logan would be off on their honeymoon to the Maldives without a care in the world. He had promised her he wouldn't book anything for the first few months of their marriage in order to enjoy the downtime, but once she was finishing up school she figured he could shoot anywhere in North America and be able to get home relatively easily.

"Logan?" Rory called as she walked into the apartment. She tossed her oversized purse on the pool table and looked around. The bed was made, the lights were on, everything was just in place, but something still felt off to her. Then she saw it. Sitting on the black granite peninsula in the kitchen…an off white envelope with her nickname written on it in his loopy scrawl.

Rory smiled as she walked towards it…this was so like him. To leave a note with a destination or a hint for where they might be going and so she picked it up and opened it, noting that it was unsealed. She picked it up and opened it, noting that it was unsealed which was unusual. Instead of the normal HPG letterhead that seemed to show up for Logan frequently, it was a neatly folded piece of lined paper. Like the notebooks they used in their Chilton days to send each other notes to pass the day… she had hundreds of them tucked away in a box in her old room in Stars Hollow. Rory took the paper to the couch and flopped down, crossing her legs underneath as she opened the paper.

Ace,

I need to start by telling you how sorry I am. You don't deserve this. You deserve better than me..I've always thought you were better than me, that you could do better than me…but somehow I was lucky enough that you saw something special in me. By the time you read this I will be halfway to Sydney to film. I can't get married. It isn't that I can't get married to you. When I close my eyes and think about it, the only person I want to marry is you. The only future I see with a white picket fence and kids is with you…but I can't do it. There are too many things…there are things we both need to do before we can get married. I'm sorry that I took the cowards way out. I'm sorry that I wasn't enough of a man to tell you how I felt. Please know that above all else, I do love you. I know you won't believe me, but it is the only thing I know…I love you and even if this hurts in the moment, you will find a better man than me.

Logan