"… and then the swans were swimming towards us, so we ran in panic. Luckily, no one was injured." Rory told her mom on the phone. She came home to an empty house few hours ago, so she called her mom to find out. But it seems like the situation is not getting better in Lorelai's household, because Lorelai stayed at Dragonfly Inn, working overtime – and there's no sign of Luke.
"I'm glad you're okay! You should be careful next time, baby-mama!" Lorelai said in cheery tones, trying to sound normal while having an internal struggle on how to explain to Rory on what Luke just did.
Lorelai took a long breath, not sure if this is the time or place to tell Rory yet. She was so mad at Luke for meddling in Rory's private business. She knows it's the right thing to do, and she has pushed Rory couple of times to do it herself, but Luke was so out of place. Lorelai exhaled and figured that she will tell Rory tonight after she finished her work. "Oh, if you're hungry, you can get the leftover in the fridge. I think we have Chinese food left."
"No thanks, I'm not going to risk and get food poisoning. I'm going to order Indian. You want some?"
"Nope, I'm good, thanks! I'm gonna eat my dinner here at Dragonfly. Enjoy your Indian food!" Lorelai ended-up the conversation.
Rory hung-up the phone and searching for Kirk's mom number on her phone to order food via OOOber.
Should she go and visit Luke in the diner to figure out what happened between him and her mom? There's absolutely something wrong, she could sense it from the fake cheerful tone of Lorelai on the phone and the deafening silence this morning in the kitchen.
Rory could hear her stomach grumbling. She will go and search for Luke after dinner, she thought to herself. She proceeded to order the food.
About ten minutes later, she could her the doorbell ringing. That was unusually fast, Rory thought to herself. OOOber must've had a lot of improvements, because based on her experience, one out of two order will got lost or mixed up.
Once, Rory ordered Thailand food, but instead she received a couscous from Al's Pancake World. She embraced herself to discover the surprise. What would it be this time? A pizza? Or maybe more 'bourgeois bohème' dish like the quinoa salad that Michel can't stop talking about?
She opened the door, ready to greet Kirk, but instead, she found a bigger surprise than quinoa salad. Or bigger than anything else OOOber can deliver.
She found Logan Huntzberger stood in front of her doorstep.
Logan is one of those people who have a very expressive eyes. He cannot hide his emotions too much, especially from the observing eyes of Rory. But tonight, his eyes reflected mix of emotions. Rory can see confusion, hurt, frustration, surprise, sadness and… unless she's mistaken, she can see a bit of joy there too.
Rory felt her heart sunk to the floor. She gulped, unsure what to say, "Logan…" she finally said, so soft almost a whisper. This is too much to proceed. Two exes in a day. One of them – who stood here in front of her – is the baby-daddy whom she had an illegitimate affair with for a year.
Logan eyes quickly shifted to her belly. "…so I think you owe me some explanations," he said coldly.
"Logan… do you want to come in?" she opened the door and made a weak waving gesture, a first-attempt to discuss things level-headedly.
"Do I have a say in that?" Logan responded, still with a distant tone, while making his way to come inside the house.
Rory gulped again, thinking there's no point to have a small talk, she started her arguments, "I was trying to tell you Logan…"
It's Logan's turn to have his heart to sank to the pit of his stomach. So it was a call from Rory, that night when he left his phone to go to the kitchen and Odette was answering it on behalf of him. Logan is unsure how he should feel. He can only assume it was his baby, since Luke was calling him and said he has an 'unfinished business' here in Stars Hollow. He now knows that Rory had made an attempt to tell him, but it wasn't enough.
How much longer she intended to keep this… to keep his baby, their baby behind his back if Luke hasn't interfered in? Is this why Rory also cut all sort of communications between her and Finn or Colin?
Mad at himself for not trying harder to call Rory back, he spat out a sarcastic remark, "Well I'm sure the previous Chilton valedictorian and Yale graduate in journalism can find other way to tell me, like with the magic technology of e-mail for example." Logan sounded a bit too harsh from what he was intended to. He saw the hurt in Rory's Bambi eyes and immediately felt bad. How come he can be so forgiving to Rory?
He cleared his throat and he can still feel the anger building up inside of him – an anger directed more to himself than Rory. But he knows anger won't bring him anywhere in this discussion. He exhaled and braced himself, "Is it mine?" Logan said with a calm tone.
After a few seconds which feels like eternity, Rory nodded to confirm. "Paul and I… we didn't… we never… It can only be yours, Logan."
Logan can feel his anger is gradually replaced by a weird feeling. A weird feeling that he hasn't felt since long time ago. Since their reunion in Hamburg. Was it happiness? Logan have no doubt that the baby is his. He can feel it. Heck, he even had a predicament that morning in New Hampshire because he remembered they let it slip once and didn't do it safely. And he knew Rory is not on pills.
He saw Rory's eyes are now filled with tears. He ignored his instinct to come closer and embraced her. Unfortunately, his life is not some cheap soap opera where the two main characters embraced each other at the end and the end, happy ending.
Unsure with Logan's silent reaction, Rory is trying to calm herself and to contain her tears. "I wanted to tell you… but I didn't want to ruin your happiness with Odette… so I…"
"We're over, Odette and I. I called off the wedding." Logan cut her off.
Rory's eyes once again turned big, in shock. "But what about the dynastic plan?"
Logan shrugged, "I can be my own dynastic plan." He replied while his lips formed a smile, something that is out of his control. "You… didn't check the internet at all? It was all over the news. I'm almost making Mitchum proud, being on the headlines and all."
"Uh yeah… the first few months was very hard – I got sick almost every morning, so I didn't really follow the news." Rory started to feel like an idiot. She did feel like a gunk and stayed most day on her bed with a hot cup of tea to calm her nausea.
Logan looked culpable, pain reflected on his eyes. "How far along are you? When is the due date?"
"I'm 4-months pregnant and the due date is 2nd of July." Rory filled him with the details. "But what should we do now, Logan? Going to a therapist together? Hiring a co-parenting coach? Shipping this kid back and forth across the Atlantic?"
Logan let go a long sigh again, "I don't know, Rory. But I know that I want to be there. I want to be with you and our baby. We will figure it out together," he finally extended his hand to stroke down Rory's arm. First physical touch since 4-months.
"I don't know a lot. But I know from a long time that I love you, and I want to be with you." Logan added silently in his mind.
Rory can feel herself melted against his touch. Tears are coming back to her eyes again. It must be the hormones.
"I love you, Logan," she thought silently. "Please don't go. I never stopped loving you. I want to be with you 10 years ago, a year ago, now and forever." But those words won't come out of her mouth, no matter how much she reminded herself on Emily's words that day in Nantucket. She doesn't quite understand why she can't say those words to Logan.
Rushed with emotions, Logan can feel his eyes are becoming teary. Knowing that he wasn't there the first few months of his baby's life. That he wasn't there to help Rory to deal with her morning sickness. To deal with her family and people in Stars Hollow. To let Rory to believe that she's a home-wrecker, while she's carrying his baby. The baby that will now seal their fate together, forever.
He finally extended his arms again to embrace Rory. He felt her body rested against his chest. He exhaled deeply, storing all of these into his memory. The smell of Rory. Her pregnant belly against his stomach. That gorgeous brunette hair that stroked his chin.
They stayed like that for few minutes. Both of them too busy with their thoughts that they didn't hear Paul Anka barked and the front door opened. Lorelai came in, eyes wide in shock. "Oh wow, and here ladies and gentlemen, we got the baby daddy."
I'm bacc ! Sorry, it took a while. I'm just taking a month off to go back home after 3 years not seeing my family due to the C-word !
December Jeffries2, you're right, there must be some news about Logan engagement annulment - so I'm incorporating it here on this chapter. Thank you :)
I realized that I wrote too much on the 'author sidenote' column, so I'll just leave it here (for now). But I'm wondering if the story should be a bit longer and slow-burn or just write what and how ROGAN got back together in epilogue? I feel like it's almost the end, so I don't want to prolong it unnecessarily :)
Enjoy reading and thanks for your favs, follows and comments! xx
