Chapter 45

The whole way, taking the train from New Haven to Stamford, Rory was a nervous wreck. It almost felt like the universe was laughing at her. First she'd nearly missed breakfast and then spilled coffee on the dress she'd wanted to wear, ending up changing around her alternatives to an utterly boring black suit-white shirt combo, which made her feel like she'd just blend into the background. Second, she'd nearly missed her train, but thankfully hadn't. She was also beginning to realize that while the shoes she had on looked good, they might be causing her to limp home later. And fourth - she could already feel the dull ache in her lower back, expecting to get her period pretty sure. Not the best timing, and she could only wish her body knew better than that.

Thankfully, she found the newspaper office without much struggle, and took the elevator up to the right floor. She didn't know what she'd been thinking - but she must've expected to just walk in and see Mitchum. But obviously things were not as straightforward.

"Can I help you?" A red-haired and hoarse voiced receptionist noticed her looking very-very lost.

"I was just trying to figure out if I'm in the right place," Rory replied, fidgeting with her shirt cuff.

"Were you hoping to be in some sort of newspaper office?" the woman asked in return.

"Yes, I was. I'm Rory Gilmore. I'm an intern," Rory began, adding hesitantly, "Mitchum, Mr. Huntzberger," she corrected herself quickly, realizing she needed to step up her game fast. She didn't want anyone here knowing she knew him on a first name basis. "Mr. Huntzberger hired me. I'm new," she said, keeping her rambling to herself.

"Here's a temporary ID," the woman handed her a visitor's pass. "Sometime today, stop by and see Al Carson," she instructed, making Rory already regret having not brought a pencil as the woman went on to explain what Al would help her with. "You need to go talk to Harry, he heals with interns," she added, leaving Rory on her own devices.

That was something that made Rory actually realize that she really was lower than grass at this place - interns were dealt with, not welcomed with open arms. But she reminded herself of the two reasons she was here. A) to correct a mistake for not having done an internships before - she'd already wasted one summer, and doing this one as well as she could even if it had landed onto her lap for the wrong reasons. It was still a line to add to her resume and it was not going to last forever, and B) get to know Mitchum and show him that she was not some flaky college girl, but that she was smart, brave, resourceful and capable. The latter, however, needed some of that Chilton power, one that she'd lost a little being now in college - a small fish in a bigger pond. Thankfully, channeling an almost counterintuitive pep-talk in Paris' voice in her mind did the trick. She could do it. She had to believe she could.

After the woman pointed in the direction of Harry, Rory made his way into the maze of cubicles.

"Excuse me, can you direct me to Harry?" Rory asked another woman sitting behind a desk, typing away.

"End of the hall," the woman replied.

"Thanks," she replied, and as she went forward, noticed only one of the signs on the cubicles actually were signed to a guy named Harry.

"Excuse me, are you Harry?" Rory asked.

"Yes, that is me," Harry replied, unenthusiastically.

"Hi! I'm Rory Gilmore, I'm an intern," Rory said, extending out her arm.

"Okay, this is basically the newsroom. Reporters, support staff. Over there is the composing room where we do paste-up. It's called paste-up because it used to be done with..," Harry began to explain as if playing it off an record.

"Scissors and paste," Rory finished his sentence, but made it a point to tone down on the cute.

"Right, now we do it on a Mac," Harry replied. "In that cabinet all our own back issues- '95 to present are on CD-rom, earlier on microfiche. If you use the microfiche reader make sure you turn it off because the bulb is too hot and melts the stuff," Harry explained.

"This is Tom Firth's desk," Harry continued. "He writes Firth Things First on the op-ed," he added. "That's Ed Rose. Circulation, advertising," he continued, pointing at doors and desks along the way. It was all a lot for Rory to remember being this nervous. He finished the tour in the kitchen, and the sight of a coffee machine made Rory relax a little.

As Harry promised to be right back, Rory just had to go to the kitchen, knowing her mother would kill her if she didn't provide at least one picture of evidence of her first day at a real job, technically an internship just, but still beyond anything she'd ever done for money in Stars Hollow or Yale.

She was pulled out of her picture-taking mode by hearing a weak mumble from outside - "Is he here yet?" followed by the name Huntzberger. She knew this meant business.

"Huntzberger's here," one of the workers said. Another one groaned at the mention and made her escape. Apparently he was not terribly well liked or at least people were apprehensive towards their buyer. Rory wished she'd asked more from Logan about the purchase, thinking back.

"Huntzberger's here," Harry repeated to Rory, having arrived.

"Where?" Rory reflected, not seeing him.

"I think he's one of those guys there," Harry replied.

"Yeah. In the middle, striped tie," Rory replied.

"You know Huntzberger?" Harry asked, making Rory realize that perhaps she shouldn't have said anything.

"Yes," Rory admitted.

"Really? What's he like?" Harry inquired.

Rory honestly wished she had something other to tell him other than everything she'd read. Saying he hated peas hardly felt fitting. "He's a shark in the business. Constructive, but says it how he means it," Rory summed up the impression she had of him, hoping it hadn't been too graphic.

"This is Stan Mercer, circulation, Les Cavanaugh, city beat, Stephanie Fitzsimmons, photo editor, Patel Condraseskar, our resident computer whiz," some sweaty guy introduced the key players to Mitchum, which Rory actually found equally informative.

"Okay, a lot of people, a lot of names. And I promise, I'll learn some of them," Mitchum replied, causing a friendly burst of laughter. "We'll talk more about this at the general meeting but I want you people to understand that the Huntzberger Publishing Group isn't going to change what you do. We're going to help you do what you do better," he explained and Rory could just observe how some people remained a little skeptical.

"Alright, I want all the department heads gathered in the conference room in ten minutes," Mitchum instructed the sweaty man. "Someone make some coffee," he added before, asking - "Rory?"

"Yes, sir?" Rory responded, unable to completely hide her eagerness.

"You ready to shadow me?" Mitchum asked.

"Yes, sir," Rory replied.

"Let's go," he replied.

She nearly lost sight of them but thankfully was pointed back into the right direction by Harry, and caught up with them at the conference room.

Mitchum didn't exchange another word with her, but thankfully now that Rory had found a pencil she was actually eager to make notes. She had learned this much that beyond actually making notes of the meetings, she was also making notes of the different people and their behavior, including Mitchum's. In part she was here to learn about him as well.

After the first meeting Rory was already feeling the stress as basically half the group just rushed along the hallways to get to another meeting. Physically she was feeling like she just wanted to go climb under a mountain of blankets, with her stomach aching a little more by the hour, and her shoes being so very wrong for this job. She removed the shoes, shoved them in her bag and caught up with the group, missing perhaps two sentences. She was not feeling like she was giving off the best impression, even if technically she was doing what she'd been told - to shadow him.

The rest of the group dispersed, leaving Rory, rather awkwardly, alone with Mitchum for a minute. She felt like she should make some small-talk but she realized all of her normal small-talk hardly seemed fitting. She wasn't going to suggest how the ability to run a four-minute mile would somehow come in handy at this place, was she?

"You alright there?" Mitchum asked her, surprising her.

"Um, yeah," Rory replied.

Mitchum pointed at her lack of shoes, causing Rory to blush slightly.

"Um, yeah - wrong shoes. Sorry," Rory replied.

"It's fine… you could probably just call Logan and ask him to bring you something else to wear," Mitchum suggested, surprisingly helpfully. Rory wasn't quite sure whether these hints that he'd been throwing, both last time at YDN and now, that they were so linked with Logan that they shared everything and did everything for each-other was acknowledgement of their relationship or perhaps mocking them even.

Mitchum must've sensed the gears turning in her head.

"Just meant that it'll be a long day at the speed we're going now," Mitchum commented, almost as if considering Rory to be on his side in this paper while the others were those that needed to be convinced.

"Uh-huh, I know," Rory replied. "I just don't want to bother him while he's at class," Rory said, kind of showing her upper hand at knowing Logan's schedule by heart and prioritizing him actually attending his classes beyond her discomfort.

Mitchum just observed her for a second, not saying a word, until his attention was drawn to other things.

"Stan's going to need another ten. Why don't I take you to Ron Stone's, talk some advertisement," the sweaty man, who's name Rory now knew to be Carl something, said.

"Let's do it," Mitchum agreed, and went into the next room. Rory could hope it was by mistake, that she got the door slammed to her face, but she quickly gathered herself and knocked, peeking in.

"Ah, of course Rory - join us," Mitchum encouraged. There weren't enough seats in the room, so Rory just leaned against the wall and took notes just like she had in the conference room. As far as she knew that was what an intern was supposed to be - a fly on the wall, a shadow.

She hadn't had a break but then again neither had Mitchum, which was kind of admirable really, but honestly Rory was just hoping her period hadn't started yet, hoping the panty liner she had in use would suffice if it had. It was such unnecessary stress on top of this whole thing.

She continued through the meetings until an eventual small break sometime in the afternoon when she hastily ate a stale donut and rushed to the bathroom only to realize she'd been worried about nothing. It was as she emerged, seeing Mitchum on the phone in a conference room, she decided to call Logan for reinforcements - a pep talk at least.

"Hello?" Logan asked since she was calling from an office phone.

"Help, help, help," Rory said.

"What's the matter, Ace?" Logan asked in his honey-sweet voice.

"Nothing. I just feel like I'm winning the Spaz of the Year award. My shoes are all wrong, I don't know what to say or do…," Rory explained.

"I'm sure it's not that bad," Logan commented.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I don't know where anybody is..," Rory fretted.

"It's the first day, it'll get better," Logan soothed her, while continuing to type on his end, having a paper due.

"Your father must think I'm an idiot," Rory replied.

"I'm sure he doesn't," Logan tried to calm her.

"I need some help. I need something to say to him other than 'yes the bleeding stopped, thanks,'" Rory joked.

"Hey, I think that's pretty good," Logan teased.

"Logan, please… give me something. Something I can use to connect with him," Rory pleaded.

"I don't know," Logan said, sounding genuine, which was kind of sad really.

"You do know…," Rory assured, knowing that in part it was just him not wanting to think about his father much. "This is important to me, Logan. Please?" she added.

Logan sighed and stopped typing - and Rory knew he was at least giving in on her request with something.

Logan continued to list a number of not so useful things - jazz, Mitchum's hate towards "My favorite things" and on a somewhat more useful note - "He lets people go at 7 but keeps going until 8.30 or 9 and he notices the people who stay. He hates double talk, but he's really good at it. And, uh… he has high blood pressure so he switches to decaf after 4," Logan listed.

"That's something," Rory reflected.

"Don't worry, Ace. He's impossible to really impress, and for him to be truly disappointed in you your name would have to be Logan," Logan added.

"I'm sure that's not true," Rory said with a sigh.

"Uh-huh," Logan replied. "You're doing fine, I'm sure of it," he assured.

"Thanks, Logan," Rory replied.

"I'll pick you up at 7.30, okay? Go get 'em, Ace!" Logan encouraged, injecting Rory indeed with some much needed boost to last until the end of the day.

"Bye, Logan," she said, just loving that fact that she didn't have to ask but that he'd offered to pick her up so she wouldn't have to limp all the way to the station in her shoes.

Rory surprised Mitchum with a cup of decaf as they went into their evening meetings, which was met with gratitude, but Rory wasn't entirely convinced fetching him the right coffee was the type of thing she wanted to be impressing him with. This was the anticipation of needs - this was what secretaries and assistants were for - she didn't want that, nor did she want to be sucking up too desparately. So she realized that before she returned to this place the next time she'd have to be prepared for something different.

"Huh… I never knew being an intern was this hard," Rory exhaled as she finally sank onto her bed, Logan having followed her into her dorm. It was undecided whether he would be spending the night yet. Her mind felt fried, her legs were tired even from walking barefoot, and her whole body felt achy and bloated. Classic PMS. It was not like Logan hadn't been with her when she was like this before, they'd been together for more than half a year by now so he'd seen her moody and achy and not in the mood too, next to all of their fun times.

"Well you did great. I just hope it turns out to be as great as you hope it would be," Logan soothed, landing by her side to sit, and massaged her palm, knowing something she got stress headaches and tried to ease them by massaging her pressure points.

"I just keep thinking how unprepared I am… like I have nothing to add content wise. Sure, I can bring him the right coffee thanks to you, but it's like he's expecting me to get my word in but I have nothing," Rory expressed her concerns.

"You'll figure it out, you have a great brain," Logan assured.

"It's just a really really bad week and I still have so much work to do for my econ 185," Rory sighed. "My stomach's all bloated and I just want to crawl into my bed and sleep until this internship is over," Rory groaned, letting Logan know in few words what was up with her - somehow actually saying the word 'period' was a little awkward between them still even if she had in the past referred to it as 'the time of the month' but then too in whisper as if it was something to be ashamed of. It was sort of implied, but not directly spoken about, and Logan usually seemed fine reading between the lines, the topic being a little uncomfortable for him too possibly.

"So, let me go grab you something to eat and just let you do just that?" Logan offered. Truthfully, he'd hoped they could look at a few properties for them to move in that he'd looked up for them, thinking about putting a reservation on them before they went to see them. But this week wasn't looking like it was going to be a great week for this subject so he kept it to himself.

"You'd do that?" Rory said, referring mostly to the food.

Logan made a face as if it was obvious he'd do this for her. It wouldn't have been the first time.

Logan returned to Rory's room with a burger, fries and soda only to see her having gotten into her sweats instead of her work clothes and fallen asleep on her bed already. The poor girl looked exhausted.

He kissed her on her temple in goodbye and pulled the blanket over her before making his exit. He honestly wanted to help her with the internship, feeling like it was the only part of this he could help her with. He just wasn't sure yet how.

Rory woke in the morning to the realization she was starving, her stomach grumbling audibly, having missed her dinner. She was relieved to see the stale fries on the side table with a post-it - "There's a burger in the minifridge". It was even bigger of a shock to her to find herself asleep on her bed, fearing she might've bled through, having never really gotten around to taking any precautions las night. Thankfully, the sheets were still clean.

But after she rushed to the bathroom, sitting there, she was both relieved and a second later concerned - why was there still no period? She figured it was just a day too soon or something, even though on most months it was pretty much like clockwork. Maybe it was the tiredness, the stress… but she couldn't help to have planted a little seed of doubt in her too - what if it was something more?