Chapter Two

It was a comforting sound, the click-clack of the train wheels as they sped down the tracks. Rory wasn't a train aficionado or anything, but she did enjoy that sound. Since she'd moved to New York City nearly a decade ago, the sound meant homecoming. It meant soon she would be surrounded by love, and familiarity, and the always-interesting Lorelai Gilmore. Rory only ever took the train to visit Connecticut; she even avoided the subway if she could. So, trains became associated with home.

A week had passed since that terrible morning. The day where she was late, forgot her son's lunch, and was awarded her first ever major story. A week since she'd learned that the Times wanted her to right a smear piece on her ex-boyfriend and almost fiancée. There had been a time when Rory had almost considered spending the rest of her life with the man and now, she needed to dig up dirt on him, his company, and his company's business practices. That had truly been a terrible day.

On that day, Rory had called up her mom and made plans to visit Stars Hallow that weekend, the soonest she could leave New York what with Ricky in school. Finally, Friday evening arrived, and Rory and her son boarded the train to Connecticut with the crowd of business-suited men and women returning to their families after a week (or maybe even a day) of work in the city. Rory had always enjoyed watching those men and women, their air of self-importance perpetually about them. She had, for the briefest of seconds, considered moving out of the city to raise her son. Quickly, Rory had realised that the benefits of the suburbs, the yards and parks and private schools, were not enough for her to put up with spending hours on the train every day. Maybe is she wasn't a single mom, but not as her life stood then.

Rory turned to look at her son, his nose buried in a novel. It was a school assignment to read it; his teacher had put them into book club like groups where they would read a novel and then discuss their thoughts, feelings, and impressions on it. However, Rory knew that her son would probably be reading even if he didn't have to for school. Ricky, much like his mother, loved the written word. He could lose himself in a book for hours, perfectly content to live amongst the pages.

A smile crossed the brown haired woman's face. She couldn't think of missing a minute of Ricky's life on the train, commuting to work. Living in New York City was just fine for the two of them.

"I know you're staring at me, Mom. I can feel it," Ricky mumbled from behind his book. He didn't raise his eyes, didn't even flick a glance in her direction. Rory laughed at her son.

"How can you when your eyes haven't left the pages of that book for nearly an hour?" Rory asked, still chuckling. Ricky made a 'harrumph' sound in response and slouched down further in his seat, continuing to focus on his book.

Rory took the opportunity of her son's distraction to take him in. sometimes, she couldn't believe he was hers, despite the hours of long, painful labour she'd gone through to have him. He had perpetually messy blonde hair that Rory had yet to figure out how to tame. He made it worse by continually, and absent-mindedly, running his hands through it. His eyes were the same shade of blue that she possessed, that her mom possessed. When he concentrates, his nose wrinkles in the same way Rory's does. And, when he is upset, he pouts and crosses his arms just like his father.

Rory stops her assessment of her son there, before her train of thoughts verge any closer to the dangerous territory they were heading. Ricky's father is a bit of a sore subject with Rory and she doesn't like to spend too much time thinking about him. Nonetheless, she has been finding herself doing that more and more as Ricky has grown up and started to resemble his father more and more. Rory feels a pang of jealousy as she thinks that her mom never really had to worry about this and jokingly wishes that she, too, could have had a daughter.

'Though,' she mused, the click-clacking of the tracks lulling her into an almost hypnotic like trance and allowing her mind to wander unfiltered, 'I guess I'll have to think about Ricky's dad more and more…'

Rory stood in the small hotel bathroom, staring in absolute disbelief. There was no way. This was not happening. It had to be some sort of cruel joke or something. No. her mind just could not wrap itself around the sight she was currently attempting to take in. It was like something in her mind was short-circuiting.

The small plus. Rory knew what it meant, on some deep level. However, her brain, as some sort of defense mechanism, was not allowing her to process what it meant, for her, for her career, for her future. Her whip-smart head was no longer computing.

"You've been in there for like twenty minutes already! I need to get in there and get ready for the day! Stop being so selfish! You are a baby! You don't need to spend this much time on your face! You look good as it is!" the annoyed, angry voice of her current roommate, a more senior journalist at another online newspaper, yelled. The other woman also banged loudly on the door, trying to rouse Rory from her stupor and the bathroom.

Slowly, Rory wrapped the small stick in a Kleenex and slipped it into the pocket of her jacket. She didn't really want to keep it, but she especially didn't want her nosey roommate discovering it in the trash. Their press bus was like being in high school all over again. Gossip and rumors spread like wildfire. The last thing Rory needed at the moment was a bus full of virtual strangers she'd spent the last month with, and would continue to spend the upcoming months with, gossiping about her scandal.

Finally, she opened the door to the bathroom and smiled a sheepish smile at the woman whom met her. "Sorry, couldn't find my eyeliner. It was at the very bottom of my bag." To add to her statement, Rory lifted her small makeup bag, decorated with Hello Kitty dolls that her mom had initially bought her for her trip around Asia the summer before.

Her roommate just rolled her eyes and huffed angrily before pushing passed Rory and slamming the bathroom door behind her. Rory moved further into the room and began busing herself preparing her bag for the upcoming speech Obama would be giving in about an hour's time. Slowly, the small stick still bundled in her coat pocket slipped from her mind.

It wasn't until Rory was on the bus that evening that she was reminded of it again.

She had been so busy recording the speech, writing down key terms, phrases, and promises that she would use in her story about the speech, that she hadn't had a moment to think about the stick. Then, it had been the normal whirlwind of post-campaign stop chaos. All of the journalists, print, online, and broadcast, packed up their equipment. The print and online journalists then quickly grabbed food from the backstage area and headed back onto the bus, which would follow the official campaign bus to the next city, the next stop, the next speech or photo op.

In the month or so that Rory had been following the Obama campaign, she had gotten used to quick meals on busses. She normally picked something that was easy to eat on a bumpy bus. Nothing with sauces or food that could easily fall onto her lap. Nothing with crumbs. Nothing with a strong smell. She almost had it down to a science, but that didn't mean that occasionally she made a poor choice. That particular night she'd picked a chicken wrap that she thought would keep all it's ingredients inside the whole grain tortilla. However, she hadn't noticed the large amount of ranch dressing that had been applied until it had dripped on her favourite pair of jeans.

It was as she was searching through her pockets for a napkin that her hand once again closed around the Kleenex wrapped stick and that odd, non-computing moment from what felt like another lifetime ago, rushed back. Slowly, Rory pulled out the package and unwrapped it. She laid it carefully on her lap and finally, her brain allowed her to process the information.

The little plus on the pregnancy test she'd bought at the hotel gift shop meant she was pregnant. At twenty-two she was going to become a mother. Not as scandalous as her own beginnings, but also not the ideal. Rory was just getting started. Having a kid would change her life. Would she still be able to have everything she wanted?

Slowly the memory faded, and Rory came back to the present moment, the little plus sitting across from her hunched around a book, embarrassed by her unabashed staring. She'd come so far from that moment on the 2008 Obama campaign press bus. It hadn't been easy, and it hadn't always been the path she'd thought it would take, but she was endlessly happy about her life. She wouldn't trade Ricky for anything in the world.

"Do you think Grandma will let me walk Paul Anka on my own this time?" the soft, contemplative voice of her son broke Rory from her train of thoughts.

"If you put sugar on your toes when you meet him," Rory responded, recalling the first time she had met her mother's beloved, quirky dog. She chuckled at her own little joke, but Ricky just rolled his eyes and returned to his book.

Rory continued to stare at her son and felt herself once again drifting back into the past, soothed by the trains slight sideways swaying…

For some reason, the door seemed extremely menacing. She was probably just projecting. Taking her worries and her nerves and manifesting them on a harmless door, but she still found herself frozen and unable to knock. It had been one thing when she'd discovered she was pregnant, lifechanging and monumental. But this, telling the father, would somehow make it real. There would be no going back now, Rory's subconscious spoke.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and knocked on the door. She didn't have a lot of time to waste. The campaign would only be in California for a few more days and those days would keep Rory busy. This was her only free moment and if she didn't do it now, she didn't know when she would next have the opportunity.

'And it's not really the end. I could change my mind, even after he knows. That's my right,' Rory coached herself as she felt her hand connect with the wood for a third time. She waited a few seconds before she heard plodding footsteps from behind the door. They didn't sound right, not the familiar steps she'd grown used to, but maybe California had changed the way he walked.

When the door opened and revealed a tall, beautiful woman, Rory realised why they had sounded strange. They had not been Logan's footsteps, but some woman's.

"Yes?" the woman asked, a slight hint of an accent Rory couldn't place in her tone. "Can we help you?"

'We?' Rory's subconscious asked. 'What does she mean we? Who is we?'

"I'm looking for Logan Huntzberger," Rory spoke out loud, trying to peer around the woman an into the house.

'She's probably just a friend.' Rory told herself, though she didn't believe it. Logan wasn't really the person to have female friends. Not ones this pretty, and not ones who would answer the door of his house.

"My fiancé is at work right now. Maybe try back this evening," the woman spoke, her tone cold for a reason Rory was entirely certain of. Then, before Rory could say another word, the door closed in her face and she was left stunned on the doorstep.

'Logan has a fiancée? How? We only broke up like four months ago?' Despite her questions, Rory wasn't that surprised. Of course he wouldn't have just been sitting around, pining after her. She was the one who turned him down, rejected his proposal. He had every right to move on. But now, what to do about her situation?

She was pregnant with his baby. Rory knew that if she told Logan about it, he would dump this girl and be there for her through it all but was that really what she wanted. She'd turned his proposal down because they had wanted different things in life, were on two different paths. Telling Logan about this baby would derail him from his path and force him onto hers, or even further derail her path and force her to California.

Rory looked around at the green grass and palm trees that were Logan's front yard. This was not the life that she wanted. She'd already made that decision once. So, without a second look back, Rory walked off the door step and back to her awaiting cab.

Logan didn't have to know. It would be better this way.

"So, are you going to tell me who he is?" Lorelai asked for what felt like the twelfth time since she'd walked into the kitchen five minutes ago. Rory loved being home, but her mother was getting very close to driving her crazy. She had about a week off, a rare break in the hectic campaign schedule, and she'd quickly made her way back to Stars Hallow, though now she was regretting it.

The day after she found out she was pregnant, she'd called her mother to let her know. Lorelai had been initially concerned but had quickly come around when Rory expressed her excitement, nervous though it was. Once it had been established that Rory would be keeping her baby, her mother had begun an unrelenting campaign to find out who the father was. Rory, still unsure about what she would do regarding her baby's father, had kept her mother in the dark, though it was getting harder and harder to do so. When Lorelai set her mind to something, she was unrelenting until she achieved it.

"I've been sort of dreading telling you this because I am so not that girl, except for the one time that I was, but I don't really know who he is. It was a stupid one night stand after a particularly grueling press day. I might have had too much to drink and I wasn't really thinking like myself. I feel really stupid," Rory spoke, hanging her head and avoiding her mother's eyes. She hoped her body language spoke 'shame at my actions'. In reality, it was saying that she found it incredibly hard to lie to her mom.

It had been in the cab back from Logan's place that Rory decided if she wasn't going to tell Logan about the baby, she couldn't tell anyone about Logan. It was bound to get back to him, their worlds were still fairly connected. She would have to come up with some story, some explanation that was not Logan. She'd landed on campaign trail one night stand because it negated a lot of potential questions. She wouldn't have to make up and then remember detail because she could just say she had never known them. It didn't paint her in the best light, but at least it kept her secret.

When Rory finally looked up, her mother was staring at her, a strange look in her eye. For a beat, Rory thought she wasn't buying her story. Then, Luke walked in complaining about something Taylor had done and Lorelai's attention was diverted.

Finally, the train pulled up to the Hartford station and Rory and Ricky disembarked, wheeling their small suitcases behind them. Rory watched as her son ran in front of her, excited to greet his grandmother who was waiting at the end of the station.

When Rory had first told her mom her cover story about Ricky's father, she'd been momentarily worried that Lorelai knew her too well to buy it, but it seemed to have gone over well enough. But that had been when Logan was in California, thousands of miles away and not a part of her life in any way. Now, he was apparently back in New York and the subject of Rory's career making story. Would she be able to keep her secret with him back in her life?