Don't push me onto things. You'll never succeed. I'll never find joy in things I don't myself see.

October 2010

Rory took the seat closest to the window. But the view outside of the tarmac was doing little to calm her nerves. She took a sip of her caramel cappuccino and opened her laptop to go over her research of the panel members at the conference. She wanted to be more than just well prepared for tomorrow. She wanted to know everything she could before the actual conference so that she knew what questions to ask, what speakers to focus on, more specifically, how to get the most out of her three-day conference trip. She had done thorough background research on all the panel members. Their education, achievements, and published works.

"Wow. Those are a lot of notes."

Rory looked up from her laptop to see a brown-eyed blond-haired man smirking at her.

"Oh, these. These are just my research notes for a conference." Rory said with a small smile and went back to typing on her laptop. She couldn't resist, so she looked back at Logan, who was trying to read one of the labels on her files.

"Excuse me? Do I see my name on this file?" Logan asked, his eyebrows drawn together, an amused smile playing on his lips.

"Yeah." Rory nodded her head, but at Logan's confused look, she decided to state the obvious, "You are one of the panel members on Day one."

"Yes, I know." Logan said, still not sure why that would warrant a Fifty-page file with his name on it.

"Yes, so you are on the panel, and I am researching all the panel members so that I know what questions to ask, from where their references were coming from." Rory explained, slightly defensive. This was a perfectly normal act of a diligent worker and not some deranged stalker that his questions were making her feel like.

"Well, I am partially terrified and partially disappointed." Logan chuckled and gestured to the seat that was empty against Rory to sit down.

Rory nodded, "Why terrified?" Rory asked as Logan sat down.

"That I wasn't the only one you were making a fifty-page file for, Ace." Logan said, holding her gaze.

Rory picked up her coffee cup and brought it to her lips, hiding behind it to conceal her blush.

"Oh boy. How do you fit that ego anywhere? Did you need to pay for extra baggage to take it on your flight?" Rory jokes, keeping the cup back on the table.

"No, they let me take it for free in first class."

Rory chuckled at that, but it came out more like a giggle than an actual chuckle. Rory placed a hand on her lips and inwardly chided her mind for betraying her in the situation, making her behave like a starstruck teenager. Or was it her heart?

"So…" Logan asked, eyeing her a bit. Studying what it was about her made him so curious.

"So?" Rory asked, smiling back at Logan.

"How come I don't see you around?" Logan asked.

"Why would you see me around? We have two very different lives." Rory answered confidently. What was it that they said? Yes, fake it till you make it.

"Not true. My folks are good friends with Richard and Emily. You are a Gilmore. I haven't really seen you around except at Jill's engagement party." Logan said.

"I am around." Rory said, rubbing her arm with her other hand. Was it getting cold suddenly? Or was she sitting directly under the air conditioning ducts? Because She felt a shiver go through her spine.

"Yeah? Like where?" Logan asked, leaning forward. He was more than curious now.

"Here and there." Rory said vaguely, but something about the way Logan was smirking at her as if daring her to agree to something. She quickly added, "Work, Stars Hollow, Hartford, back in the city. And yeah, sometimes Boston." God was her life so boring that she couldn't actually name the places she visited but just general cities.

"What's Stars Hollow?" Logan asked, his eyebrows drawn together.

"It's a town near Hartford, where I grew up with my mom.." Rory explained.

Bingo.

The inner reporter in him was satisfied. That explained why she was not around in Hartford so much.

The smile on Logan's face made Rory feel some type of way. The way she wasn't comfortable feeling yet. So did what she did best.

She ranted.

"It's pretty cute, actually. It's one of those amazing towns where everyone knows everyone. And there are practically zero secrets. Sometimes our neighbors knew things before we did. And not just what we got in the mail kind of things or what we had for dinner kind of things. But who we might end up marrying kind of things. Funny story, the whole town knew years before my mom and Luke that they would end up together. They even started a pool about it. That's how passionately they felt about it." Rory stopped at the sight of Logan wide-eyed. "I'll just stop now."

"Wow, I haven't seen someone go without breathing for so long. And my good friend Finn swims." Logan was amused. "So I am routinely subjected to how long he can hold his breath underwater."

"So?" Logan asked as Rory kept quiet. He guessed she got a little conscious after her rambling. He didn't know why, because he found it to be very amusing. And she did get all red and breathless by the time she finished.

"Please tell me we are not doing so again. Are we?" Rory said.

"No. Would you take an um?" Logan said, raising his palms forward.

"Sure." Rory wondered if Logan was nervous.

"Um… Is it your first time going to Hamburg?" Logan asked before the words he actually wanted to say slipped out of his mouth. Let me take you out in Hamburg.

"First time." Rory said.

"Great! Then it's all fixed." Logan said, getting back up from the table. Buttoning his suit jacket and taking out the ringing phone from his pocket.

"Wait! What's fixed?" Rory asked.

"You must let me show you around Hamburg. It would be a shame not to." Logan said. His eyes sparkled as he said that, like his words had much more subtexts than he was letting on.

Rory paused. Is this what she wanted? But he was just asking to show her around Hamburg, and she did like the sound of that ever since she read where the conference was being held. To get a feel of the city. To enjoy more than just the tourist spots, Logan did seem like the kind who would know more than just overhyped and overpriced touristy places. Like he would know the areas that actually made the city Hamburg.

"Okay." Rory said with a definite nod and flashing smile.

Logan smirked at her and walked away, answering his call.

Logan walked over to the podium. Doing this was like second nature to him by now. The occasional debates or the model United Nations that he was forced to participate in when he was younger did help him get here but to a minuscule degree. What really made him stand in front of two hundred people and speak for thirty minutes straight without even breaking a sweat was his work In London. As much as he kicked back against going to London straight after his graduation, it turned out to be really good for him.

In Fact, he would go as far as to say that London might even be one of the best things to ever happen to him.

It was really funny, actually. When his father told him about this impending departure to London within 24 hours of his graduation. Logan threw a fit, he partied on for days end, he blew his father off at least a dozen times at the tarmac. He gave his father the finger after he busted his friends and him at the ski house and went right back to being blown by Eliza Flores as soon as Mitchum Huntzberger left the house calling him chickenshit for a son in front of his friends. He tried to get his mother to realize she wouldn't see him for Christmas if his father succeeded in sending him to London. Or Easter or thanksgiving or anything else, quite frankly. But he should have known better than anyone else that if Mitchum Huntzberger made up his mind, even the devil couldn't change it.

His own daughter couldn't change it with her puppy dog eyes.

What was funny was how something he had come to hate with all his being because he was pushed towards it against his will ended up bringing him so much satisfaction. So much… direction. So much high than that of scotch or the weed, maybe even much more than that of cocaine.

But maybe that was it. He was being pushed against his will. And if anyone knew Logan Huntzberger, they knew that he hates doing anything against his will.

Logan gave the speech. He spoke of all the challenges that were hitting the journalism world in the face left and right after the recession, after digitalization. With 24-hour news cycles. In an era where journalism was being reduced to spying on the lives of A-list stars. Quizzes about which Kardashian sister was your spirit sister gathered the highest readership. Most news was being consumed from the Daily mail on social media than from The New York Times hard copy. It was a changing world for their industry, but somewhere between all of this shit show Logan was convinced it could be an interesting one after the dust settled.

It was over before Logan knew. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing he hadn't already done a dozen times. Nothing caught his attention until he saw a tear-stained blue-eyed brunette rushing out the room.

"Hey, Rory! I know you are making that face again, but yeah, it's me using the voicemail. I still don't like it, though, but I figured if there ever would be a time to use this, it would be with you in a different time zone. Don't you think? Your conference going well? I know you must be doing good. Rory…I have been thinking a lot lately. And I think… I think I need to go to California. One last time. I don't know when I'll be back, but I'll be back soon."

"Jess, I don't know why you are doing this. Just when I thought you were over this stupid crap of running in and ou… You know what? Can you just pick up the call and at least talk to me about this rather than leave a sorry ass voicemail." Rory said, frustration lacing her tone.

She was so angry. Furious. She wanted to find a brown paper bag and blow air in and out from it. But most of all, she was disappointed in herself for putting herself through this again. Whatever Jess said in the voicemail, she hated the ambiguity of it all. She would rather have things be clear between them. It was easier that way. She knew how to deal with clarity. And what good could come out of him going to California that didn't the first two times.

She clutched on to her suit jacket. The cold breeze was making her nose numb. She shouldn't have run out without her coat, her legs under the maroon pencil skirt would probably turn blue in another few minutes if she dint run back inside. But at the moment she was glad for the winter breeze. The cold was calming her anger.

Rory looked over her shoulder. The rooftop terrace she had found herself at looked quiet enough for her to stand there for a moment and collect her bearings. She turned her head to stare ahead at the canal. She couldn't help but cry silently at where her life was at the moment. Nothing was going according to the plan.

Rory was desperate for a job she actually liked, a relationship that actually made her happy. At some point, she even decided she would be happy anywhere, where everything in life wouldn't be a constant struggle.

"You'll be okay." Logan said, coming to stand next to her. Resting his arms on the railing. The wind blew the tips of his blond hair slightly.

"I don't know about that." Rory said, wiping her face of the tears.

Logan looked at her. Rory's face was blotched red, the brilliance of the blues of her eyes masked by their puffiness. He looked at her, and the threads of his heart twisted. He wanted her to stop crying. And it just wasn't out of an obligation wherein he would offer his handkerchief to a crying lady. But it was something more profound. The closest he felt like this before was when Honor's jackass of a boyfriend broke up with her in high school or when he was forced to watch dirty dancing with Stephanie for the third time while she cried her eyes out when her date stood her up. But this was way stronger, and Logan had no fucking idea where it was coming from.

All he knew was he wanted Rory to stop crying. To tell him what was wrong. He was overcome with a deep sense of protectiveness to say that whatever was bothering her wouldn't mean shit a while later.

"So what's making you cry? I hope the speech back there wasn't it." Logan joked. It's the only way he knew how to approach this.

Rory chuckled, "Ah, where do I begin? My failing career. My life plan is being fucked over. Or my jackass of a boyfriend who might have broken up with me over a voicemail or not. I am not even sure."

Boyfriend? She has a boyfriend?

"What the fuck is a life plan?" Logan asked, confused, his eyebrows drawn together.

At least she knows he is a jackass.

"It's a plan you figure out to reach where you want in life. Every important milestone you need to achieve to reach exactly where you want in life. It's a six-step process. Very easy." Rory explained as if it was the most normal thing.

"Six steps?" Logan asked, shocked. "'Who conned you?"

"No one conned me. And besides, Paris's new life coach also thinks it's a wonderful idea." Rory said.

"And it works?" Logan asked, his eyebrows raised. There was no way he believed this bull. No one can figure out the exact steps to these things. Even his control freak of a father couldn't figure it out.

"It used to work for me. Worked pretty well until I graduated from Yale." Rory said, lacing her hands together.

"You went to Yale?" Logan interrupted her. "'I went to Yale."

"Oh, I know." Rory nodded and laughed at Logan's expression. Well, at least he knew that his reputation at Yale was less than stellar.

"Yeah? What do you know?" Logan asked with a playful smile.

"'I am pretty sure you played a substantial part in Doyle's stomach ulcer." Rory said.

"Woah, hold on. That wasn't me. That was all on my father. Just like I told his scary girlfriend back then. I am sorry, but my father can be a bit of a Bully when he wants to, and back then, he really wanted me to write for the college paper and he figured the only way to make that happen was to light a fire under Doyle the editor's ass." Logan said.

"I however was so good, never gave him any trouble." Rory scoffed at that statement. "In fact, I was so good that I was never in his hair. I avoided The Yale Daily News office like the plague." Logan said with a smile.

"I know." Rory mused.

"Maybe that's why I never ran into you at YDN." Logan said, shrugging his shoulders.

Maybe I should have.

Rory shifted on her feet to look at Logan. "But we did."

"Yeah? When?" Logan had no recollection of it.

"Here and there." Rory waved her hand. She intended to leave it cryptic.

"Okay… Care to elaborate some more?" Logan pressed.

"Did you not say something about taking me out to dinner?" Rory changed the topic.

But she has a boyfriend. A jackass for a boyfriend but still a boyfriend.

"I think I said something about showing you around Hamburg." Logan pointed out.

"Now that you say it. I think I can recall a bit." Rory said, rubbing a hand on her chin. And then looked at Logan. If someone told her at Yale that she would be hanging out with Logan Huntzberger, she would have never believed them.

"Okay. So you are staying at… ?" Logan asked carefully.

"I think it's called Waldhaus Rainbow?" Rory was pretty sure that wasn't it, but that was the closest she could manage to say.

"Great. So we'll meet somewhere in Reinbek. I'll text you the details." Logan nodded.

"Color me impressed, Huntzberger. You seemed to be sending the car kind for the girl." Rory said, raising her eyebrows.

"Well. I hate to be predictable, Ace." Logan said with a smirk.

Author's note - Hamburg to be continued in the next chapter.

I know I haven't been posting as frequently as you all would like or even as frequently I would like but please know that I am working on it and trying to post at least once a week. And you know your reviews help me get the chapters out faster.

Thank you my amazing readers and please review!