I suppose my father was a son once, I am sure he is as bad as his father.

October 2010

Rory fiddled with the sides of her now empty file cover. The former contents of it are being scrutinized under thick glasses. Rory fears it's so bad that Harry has to read it for a second time. She already sent a soft copy of it the night before and Rory is acutely aware that Harry read all the submissions before 11 AM. That's one of the only times in the day that his open-door policy changes to closed. If he was reading it now, in front of her, it wasn't a good sign.

"This is all?" Harry asked, shuffling the pages in his hand.

"That's a lot." Rory flounders before correcting herself, "I mean, yes. This is all. I was under the impression that's all I had to do."

"Aren't you a reporter?"

"Yes." Rory said. Confused by the edge in Harry's tone, Rory could guess she was in some trouble for reasons unknown to her.

"In all these pages. There is not one story that I can spin and print. Hell, there is no story." Harry concluded. "I don't get the point of this. Isn't Hamburg big on the music scene? You couldn't find anything worth writing about there?"

"Like I said, I was under the impression all I had to do was report back with a brief about the actual conference. I didn't know you were looking for stories as well." Rory said.

"And what use would I possibly have of that? I am not sponsoring them. I didn't know I needed to teach my journalists how to be journalist's." Harry mocked. "Contrary to popular belief, the story doesn't find you. You find the story. And you didn't."

"I didn't." Rory agreed silently.

"There is no fool like a careless gambler who starts taking victory for granted." Harry said, taking off his glasses and looking at Rory.

"Are you calling me a fool?" Rory asked, a mix between offence and shock. "By quoting Thompson?"

"You don't belong here." Harry said, folding his fingers in front of him.

The severity of the moment hits Rory like a ton of bricks.

"No, I do. I... I can do better. I have a couple of ideas. I can write a few articles and email them to you by tomorrow morning." Rory said desperately. She would have to pull an all-nighter, but there is nothing she wouldn't do at this moment for Harry to see how serious she was about Journalism. About this job.

"Rory." Harry said, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

"6 PM, then." Rory said, placing a hand over her forehead. She would have to consume insane amounts of caffeine to get that done, but at this moment, she would take the caffeine in an IV to keep her job.

"Gilmore. Listen to me." Harry said, getting up.

"I can, I promise. I love this job. I can't be out of a job right now. Especially not right now." She couldn't lose both her job and her boyfriend in the span of less than 24 hours. She looked around frantically to come up with something that would help her figure something out.

Anything she could say to make Harry change his mind.

"If you would just shut up for a second and listen to me." Harry said loudly. That got Rory's attention.

Coming back to sit on his chair with a stack of paper in his hand, Harry continued, "I want you to go over this. Take your time; there is no rush." Harry extended a stack of papers to Rory.

The last time Rory accepted a foreign piece of paper from Harry, she ended up living a little bit of heaven in a short burst. This was an entire stack.

She couldn't help but ask, "What is this?"

"A do-over." Harry said simply, a small smile plating on his lips.

Rory quickly tore away at the yellow package. She didn't want to wait until she got home. She wanted answers.

"This is a job offer at something called, Mean? Main? Meáin?" Rory said, trying to roll the word off her tongue.

"Meáin."

"Let me get this clear, you are firing me and giving me a job offer at the same time?" Confused would be understatement, Rory was baffled.

"I'm not giving you a job offer. I'm just firing you." Harry said, blowing on his glasses and cleaning them with the side of his shirt, "However, I am recommending you for another job. A job with a dear friend of mine. You still have to go for an interview and the rest of the hoops. But my friend liked your resume. She thinks you'll fit well with the vision she has for the company."

"It doesn't say anything about my job specifications. What will I have to do?" Rory asked, still scanning the papers for more information. What she has read so far doesn't look good.

"Just what employees at a startup do." Harry adjusted his glasses behind his ears. "Pretty much all."

Rory's eyes scanned the documents. "For peanuts!" She concluded. "This is not even close to what I make right now!"

Harry at least looked a little ashamed. "That's all she can spare at the moment."

Rory bit the side of her lip anxiously. She wished she had someone neutral and experienced guiding her through his. Someone other than handing her her exit notice. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Do you think I should take this job? I mean, instead of applying at other papers? For a second, forget about your friend's startup, my pathetic journalistic attempts in your opinion. Just forget it all. Would you work at something this new?" Rory asked, her eyes glued to Harry's face.

Harry took a pause before answering honestly. "It is risky. If the company goes down, it leaves a black splotch on your resume. That could seriously harm your career because of how closely you'll be involved in it. But it could be pretty sweet for you if it does take off. It's a risk. You are the one who decides if it's worth pursuing."

Someone should tell Harry taking risks is not something Rory Gilmore does.

"Okay." Rory nodded. She was just more confused than ever now.

Harry gave Rory a smile before shifting his attention back to his screen, "Out of my office now."

"Harry? Thank you. You know, for looking out for me." Rory paused at the door.

When she joined this magazine two years ago. She had no idea that she would end up being mentored to such an extent by her editor. People didn't do that in their industry. It was chase or be chased out. And this man in front of her ended up carrying her professionally for almost two years. She would have fired herself a lot sooner if she were in his place.

Rory would have fired herself the day the temp came up with a fresher story than her.

"So you are leaving, huh?"

Rory looked over her shoulder to see Carl standing behind her. On a careful inspection, she found his hands wrapped around a string of Balloons and a card.

Rory particularly chose this time to pack her belongings in the plain looking box. When everyone was out for lunch. Some people were typing away at their desks, but Rory guessed they would hardly notice her cleaning out her desk if they were working, skipping lunch.

"I didn't have much say in it." Rory said, putting the rest of her pens and paper clips in a brown box. She disliked the boxes that didn't have partitions in them. She would have to sort them out again at home. It would only add up her work.

"Here, this is from everyone at the office." Carl said, giving the balloons and the card to Rory.

Rory smiled at how flustered he looked, "Why aren't they here themselves to give me this then?"

"The shawarma place had two for one offer today." Carl jokes.

"Oh, that's a good deal." Rory laughed. "I would never hold food as a reason against anyone." Maybe she could stop there on her way home.

Rory took the balloons and the card from him. The balloons without a doubt looked at least a day old.

"Sorry, these are from the break room. It was Nancy's birthday yesterday." Carl admits shyly. "That's all I could manage at such short notice."

"That's okay. I don't really mind." Rory said with a polite smile. She didn't mind either way. Balloons, no balloons. It was all the same to her. She was getting fired anyway.

"I figured you were going to duck out silently. You were always the quiet kind. Anyways everyone will be really sad that you didn't say goodbye before leaving. Hey, I know maybe you should wait to say goodbye." Carl suggested.

"Don't want to make a fool of myself, Carl. I would like to leave with my dignity intact" Rory snapped, she didn't want to be pitied.

"I am sure. So take this. It's like a token or something from all of us. Something to remember us by." Carl said, awkwardly.

Rory regretted the sharpness in her tone. Carl wasn't the one she was losing her job because of. "Oh I doubt it. Nick would jump and do that horrible dance he does when he finds out."

"True." Carl laughed.

"But thank you for this." Rory held up the card. "I appreciate it." She had no clue how she would take the balloons back home without looking like an idiot on the subway.

"Good luck." Carl said politely and left.

Well, she sure needed a lot of that. Because she had no clue what her next move was. She wonder if she would miss anyone from this place.

Rory Gilmore looked around one last time around her office, before the elevator door closed.

As Rory Gilmore was being fired from her job, a young heir on the other side of the town was being prepared to take his place in a dynastic plan.

November 2010

Logan stepped into Nobu fifteen minutes late like usual. Not that anyone would notice. He had his timing perfected to a T. He had nine different tricks up his sleeves to spend the least amount of time at his family events while making sure everyone who needed to know he was in attendance knew before he made his exit.

"Hello, Logan." Honor air-kissed the side of his face. "So glad you could finally join us." The formal tone his sister uses is foreign yet familiar.

Logan senses he is in trouble. He had no idea what for, yet. He had an idea his sister would let him know much sooner than he would like. Honor was incapable of keeping any sort of thought or feeling to herself.

"Here I am." Logan said with an apologetic smile directed at his sister. He turned his attention to greet the people looking at the exchange between the brother and sister with drinks in hand.

"Oh, where are my manners? Have you met my friend's parents? This is-"Honor started introducing them.

"Mr Jansen. Mrs Jansen." Logan shook their hands. His society mannerisms taking over like a second skin. "Beautiful Sybil." Logan finished with giving her his patented smirk.

"Of course." Honor muttered under her breath.

"Good to see you here this evening Logan."

"Yes, Shira said you couldn't be there tonight. We are delighted that you could make it." Mrs Jansen said a little more enthusiastically. He knows a woman in cahoots with his mother when he sees one.

And he sees one.

"It's a surprise for mom. It's her birthday, after all." Honor explained on Logan's behalf.

"Oh, how I just love surprises. Logan is so thoughtful, surprising his mother like that. Don't you think so, mom?" Sybil said, looking at Logan.

"Okay." Honor said, widening her eyes at the apparent flirting. "Will you excuse us, please?"

Before anyone could answer, Logan was being dragged to an empty table.

"I cannot believe you, brother." Honor said, standing opposite Logan.

"Hey Honor. I am good, thanks. Been a while, how have you been?" Logan mocked.

At the glare Honor gave him, he straightened his back a little bit.

"No, you don't get to do that. If you were interested in pleasantries, you should have called or returned them." Honor said, pointing at him. "But that's not the point, tonight."

"Okay. I'll just come out and ask it then. What did I do?"

"You said you would be there." Honor said, "When I told them about Josh, you said you would be there. You weren't. But things went smoothly, so I let that go. Then I asked you to be here when I told them I wanted to divorce him. You weren't there, again. And they blew a fuse."

Holy shit. When did this happen?

"What? Honor, are you okay?" Logan asked his hand on Honor's arm.

When Honor called him a week ago and demanded his presence for dinner on Saturday night, he never agreed. Because the less face time he had with his father, the better. Had he known it was this important and not Honor trying to act like the glue again, he would've never missed it.

"Of course not. I have a heart. I care about the people I love."

"I should have been there."

"Hmm." Honor hums in agreement.

"What did he do?" Logan asked, his lips pressed into a thin line.

"What?"

"Josh, what did he do?" Logan asks, closing his eyes.

"Oh him." Honor paused for effect and shrugged, "Nothing."

"What? I don't understand. Why are you divorcing him then?" Logan asked, baffled.

Honor pouts her lips together to control her laughter.

"Oh my god, Honor. I am going to kill you. You are the worst sister and the worst wife, sacrificing Josh like that." Logan said, appalled. He was hardly ever appalled. Honor's lie deserved that emotion.

"Well, baby brother, that should teach you not to mess with your older sister. And visit the family when she says." Honor said with a triumphed smile.

"I had work obligations." Logan said, raising his arms. He really didn't, but Honor didn't know that.

"Daddy said you decided to extend the trip and chose not to be back stateside by choice. Your work schedule was free. I checked with your secretary." Honor said knowingly, "No one forced you to stay. You just wanted an excuse to stay away from… well here."

That and he enjoyed his company way too much to come back to the city or even admit it to himself.

"And on most days, I am right there with you. But we made a deal that if I have to attend it, so do you. A deal is a deal. You don't get to back out of one."

Logan rolled his eyes. He never agreed to this deal. He never would. Honor spent too much time with their parents willingly for him to even consider it.

So instead of promising a promise he knew he couldn't keep, he did what he did best, "Hey, where's mom. I should go say hello before it's time to duck out."

"Fat chance of that happening. Daddy has few very European and very sexy business associates in attendance today."

"Oh, goody." Logan said, rolling his eyes. The sooner it started, the faster he could leave.

"Oh, and Logan?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you please stop sleeping with my friends?" Honor said, following him out, "It's icky."

"A gentleman never refuses the willing." Logan said with a smirk.

"Oh, that's not what they are calling them anymore, baby brother." Honor said, patting his shoulder.

"Happy Birthday, mom." Logan kisses the side of her cheek when he catches her alone.

"Logan? What are you doing here? I didn't expect you to be here tonight. What a surprise! You never come." Shira said, genuinely shocked. A rare moment of honesty slips. She recovers quickly. "I mean, I assumed you were on a business trip."

Logan cringed physically. He wasn't on a business trip. Business trips were taken by Mitchum Huntzberger. He would never be in the same category.

"Oh, I am over the moon." Shira said, placing a hand on her chest. "Mitchum, see who's here to surprise me. It's Logan's." Shira waves Mitchum over.

"So he does get the messages." Mitchum said, shaking hands with Logan.

It infuriated Logan on most days how his father never talks straight. Tonight he just wants to get it over with.

"Couldn't erase them even if I wanted to. Your secretary makes sure." Logan said, "I am just here for mom's birthday. I'll be out of your hair soon enough."

"Now, why would I want that?" Mitchum said, patting Logan on the back.

"Let's see… I don't know. Maybe something about a rising new opportunity far from here? Email really is the best way to relay important information like that. Glad you are catching up on the trend." Logan says through gritted teeth.

"Hmm, glad you approve." Mitchum said, ignoring Logan's remark. They could go rounds until the morning over the things Mitchum Huntzberger does wrong in Logan's opinion.

"Now now, boys. We are in public. This is not the time nor the place." Shira in her saccharine tone. Throwing with a well-practised wave and smile to someone in the distance.

"Your mother is right. Not now. Come on, I want you to meet some people."

Rory was diving fingers deep in the purple processed food bag, watching The office: UK. It was funny, but she missed Michael Scott.

"Hey, kiddo." Lorelai announced. Entering the house with her hands full of bags from the Doose's.

Doose's should give them loyalty discounts with how her mother helps clean out their candy shelf. Kellogg's and Red vines most definitely should.

"Hi, do we have another packet of this?" Rory asked, picking up the purple bag.

"No, I am pretty sure you wiped Doose's clean on your last run." Lorelai says from the kitchen.

It horrifies her the amount of food Rory is consuming now. And it terrifies her that it horrifies her.

"Oh!" Rory said and went back to her best companion at this point. She preferred the Television's company better these days. It doesn't ask too many questions and doesn't judge silently from behind their coffee mugs.

"So what do you have planned for today, kiddo? Maybe some friend time with Lane?" Lorelai asked.

"She is busy with Steve and Kwan." Rory said without looking at her Lorelai.

"Well, I offer to babysit them for a few hours. So the two of you can catch a new movie or something?" Anything to get Rory out of the house by this point.

"They don't have anything decent showing. I already checked." It annoys Rory that Lorelai keeps talking over the dialogue. She is missing half the fun.

Lorelai sighed.

"Oh, there is one plan. What if you go and meet the new Gazette editor?" Lorelai says enthusiastically, "Maybe offer to write some articles?"

"And be reminded of my failed plans? No thanks." Rory said with a huff.

Lorelai looks at her beautiful, intelligent, Yale graduate daughter wasting her life sitting in front of the Television. When she's not hogging the Television, it's the magazines she peruses - the fashion kind. For the first time in over twenty years, she witnessed her daughter without a book attached to her hip.

"Is there anything else that you want to do? Maybe go shopping with grandma. She could get you pretty-pretty dresses?" Lorelai says from the top of her head. "They'll make your eyes sparkle and your soul shine, just like that newest Jennifer in Tinseltown."

For the first time during that conversation, Rory pulls away from the screen and looks at her mother, "Excuse me? Do you want me gone or something?"

"No, hun. It's not like that." Lorelai said, but her eyes gave her away. Those judgy eyes.

"Good. Because you asked me to come home so that we could spend time together. I was okay being in that apartment. You insisted." Rory said, sharply.

"It's just - it's been three weeks."

"So?"

"Three weeks where you have done nothing but eat your weight in food, drink more coffee than me. I hear you watching movies at 4 AM. It was just a job. You can find another one easily. What's really going on, kid?" Lorelai asks.

"I told you what happened; I got fired is what happened."

"Did Jess do something?" Lorelai asked, sitting next to Rory.

"No." Rory said quickly.

There were a handful of things Lorelai was really good at. Knowing her daughter better than her own self was one of them.

"Rory?" Lorelei insists. The longer Rory stalls, the wilder Lorelai's imagination runs. She was now counting ways to torture Jess if he was responsible for putting her daughter in this state.

"We broke up." Rory admitted.

"Finally! Thank god."

"Mom!" Rory screamed and looked at her mother in astonishment and hurt.

"I mean, oh no! That's really sad. He was such a good boyfriend. What could he ever have done wrong?" Lorelei said, trying to mask her relief. Replacing the gleeful emotion on her face with a sad one.

Lorelai was failing miserably at that.

"I can't believe that I got fired. I did everything I was supposed to do." Rory said, wiping the tears from her face rapidly. "And now I am a jobless, boyfriend-less loser."

"Hey, hey, don't talk about my daughter like that. Doesn't reflect well on the mother." Lorelai scolded playfully.

"I am twenty-six! And what do I have? No job. I don't know why I broke up with Jess. I got arrogant. I got comfortable. I stopped chasing the stories. Maybe I should call Jess." Rory got up.

"No, no." Lorelai quickly got up from the chair to make Rory sit back down.

According to Lorelai, Rory breaking up with Jess was maybe the one good thing that happened to her daughter lately. Not that she was going to say that to Rory's face. "Why did you break up with him?"

"I… I didn't love Jess anymore." Rory said, picking the side of her nails. She kept the reason how she came to realize that to herself. That was another sore spot right now. She found herself lying awake at night waiting for the blond man's call. She almost gave in and called him last night.

"Can I say something? Something you may not want to hear?" Lorelai asked, worrying her lip.

"Whenever you say that, it's never good."

"Chasing Jess will not solve the real issue here. I know you are having some sort of quarter-life crisis. I saw it at the Opera. I thanked the gods when you didn't have it last year, but it seems it came a year late for you."

"Great! Opera knows my life better than I do now." Rory said, falling back on the couch.

"You need to stop using Jess as a weird support system when your work doesn't go well. You can't expect that from him. Not that you can expect anything from the guy but especially not this. It's not fair to him, Rory." Lorelai said.

Rory just wanted a way forward now - from Journalism, Jess, and running in circles.

"What do I do now?" Rory asks her mother. Her eyes were wide in hope.

"I don't know crap about journalism. Maybe start with a burger at Luke's?"

Rory cried her eyes out for a few more minutes. Wallowing in the arms of her mother. Not for a boy this time but for the loss of her first love.

Journalism.

"No. I need to go back to New York."

Logan leaves the dinner after a while, excusing himself through the means of a fake phone call. His time trusted getaway strategy. He hated meeting business associates with his father. He stretched the conversation longer than necessary. After a while, it always turned to things he would rather not waste his time talking about - golf, latest Indictments, the joint favorite horses in the upcoming races in god knows where.

He was sitting on the back stairs of the restaurant. The dimly lit street was a stark contrast from the front.

He twisted the white stick in his hand.

The email from his father threw him off that morning. There was a possibility that he might have to move bases again. He was aware of the whispers from the other side of the Atlantic of an important executive retiring. What he didn't know was how much his father was pushing him for it.

Logan didn't have anything holding him here anyways. His sister was busy living her blissfully happy married life. Colin was putting his hours at the firm, and Finn… last they heard, he was in Tanzania preparing for base climbing Kilimanjaro. That was three months ago. Since then apart from sporadic forwarded emails from Finn between his training, they didn't know much. At Least that let them know Finn was alive and did not slip off a cliff drunk.

And Logan didn't have anything against London. He even preferred London on most days. Days like today when his father blindsides him with an email. It hurts that he chooses to communicate with him like any other employee.

Logan hates that it bothers him, but it bothers him.

He never lit the stick.

Instead, he takes out his phone from his pocket. Looking for comfort in a far worse vice, in his father's opinion. It takes less than a second to find the name he finds his solace in now.

"Logan?" Logan hears the sheets shuffling on the other end, "'what's wrong?"

"Uh, did I wake you?"

"You know you did."

Author's note - I love that with AU's you don't know where it's going next definitely. I would love to hear where do you guys think it's going next. And what you think of this chapter as a whole?

Can you guess the chips and the actress?

Your reviews play a huge role in getting the chapters out faster. I know it's taking a while to get to Rory and Logan being Rory and Logan but we'll get there. And the next chapter will have good amount of Rogan interaction. So take a minute to review?