Puppet Master

Logan looked at his pocket watch. 10:35. He looked at the clock on the wall, attempting to determine whether or not his watch was fast. 10:35. Interesting. He would have thought that Rory Gilmore was one to value punctuality. Learn something new everyday, he thought.

Suddenly, the door of the pub was flung open and in slunk Finn looking as though he would rather be any where but crashing Logan's supposed date. Sulking, he plopped himself down in front of Logan.

"What are you doing here?"

Finn muttered something unintelligible.

"Didn't I expressly forbid you from crashing my meeting with Gilmore?"

"Yes." Finn looked up at petulantly added, "but Rory expressly dragged me to crash your meeting with her."

"Whatever for?" Logan looked honestly perplexed.

"I'm supposed to be scouting out possible pranks." He looked up expectantly. "Are you pulling a prank?"

"No."

"Oh." Finn stuck his foot out in the middle of the walkway.

"Where's Colin?" asked Logan.

Finn nodded his head toward the door of the pub, which had just opened again, admitting Colin who seemed to have developed an abnormally large shadow.

"Finn? Why is Rory following Colin like that?"

"He's her bodyguard against more obvious attacks. You know, pie in the face, that sort of thing."

Logan looked insulted. "She really thinks that little of me?"

Finn rolled his eyes. "She's just a bit paranoid."

Colin and Rory had finally reached the table.

"Hi." Rory offered.

"Now that you've assured yourself that I have no tricks up my sleeve, can these two stooges get back to whatever they were doing?" Logan said sardonically with a pointed glance at Finn and Colin.

"I don't completely grant that you have no tricks up your sleeve, but I guess they can get back to their game of Monopoly."

Startled, Logan looked at Colin. "Monopoly?"

"Finn was bored," offered Colin as an explanation.

"Hey, don't put it all on my shoulders," Finn shot back. "You were enjoying it just as much as I was."

Colin snorted in a most ungentlemanly manner. Logan shot him another look and he amended his snort saying, "Yes, Finn, why don't we go back so that you can continue beating the crap out of me?"

Finn got up, but muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "How did I ever get to be at Rory Gilmore's beck and call?"

Logan chuckled and as his friends headed out, Rory sat down across the table from him.

"Do I really come across as that much of a bad guy?"

"You're a Huntzberger," said Rory, as if that explained everything.

Logan looked taken aback. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Rory sighed and tried to coherently arrange her thoughts. "You're part of the high-society. You're unpredictable. You don't play by the same rules I do, if we're even playing the same game. I never know what's going to happen next."

"But you stick around. Why?"

"Why not? I really don't have anything better to do."

"What? No books to sniff? No classes to attend? No articles to write?" Logan gave Rory a second to think about his words before he continued. "No. I think you stick around and play the game, even though you feel that you're a novice because it intrigues you. You are intrigued by learning the game. You're intrigued by meeting the characters. You're intrigued by me."

At this, Rory snorted. "Don't flatter yourself."

"Alright then, explain it to me."

"Gosh, Logan. It's just a prank war."

"Just a prank war? I prefer to think of it as a battle of wits…" he trailed off.

"Battle of wits? Sure, I suppose."

"…and a foundation for friendship." Logan finished hopefully.

"Friendship?" asked Rory dubiously. "What exactly did you get me here for?"

"I want to call a truce?" The slight lift at the end of the sentence made it a question instead of a statement, like he had intended it to be.

"A truce? You mean you want to give up?" As always, Rory poked right through to the heart of the matter.

"Not give up. Peacefully end the conflict."

"Sounds like giving up to me," Rory teased.

Logan looked up and was dead serious when he responded. "I'm not giving up. I assure you that I could outdo you quite easily, but it wouldn't be pleasant. It would degenerate into character attacks and reputation ruining stunts. By the end, we wouldn't be able to civilly be in the same room, much less maintain any sort of relationship."

Rory looked more won over. "Continue."

"I don't want it to end that way. I want to be able to explore a friendship with you."

"Me? Why me?" Rory's uncertainty returned in a flash.

"Why not you?" countered Logan childishly.

"I'm so unlike your friends."

"Precisely."

"So you're telling me that you want to concede the prank war to try to establish a friendship with someone completely unlike yourself?"

Logan looked mock pensive for a moment. "Yes, that is precisely what I'm telling you."

Rory looked at him blankly for a minute. And then burst out laughing. "Sorry, Logan, I'm not going to fall for that. The minute my back is turned you'll just pull another prank. Nope, you have to do better than that."

Logan was starting to get angry. "Dammit, Rory, why is it so hard to believe that I want to be your friend?"

Rory looked up, startled at his reaction. "It's hard to see you being a friend to a girl without ulterior motives." The momentary flash of guilt that passed across Logan's face was enough to spur her on. "That's it, isn't it?"

Although he hadn't wanted to be goaded into it, she had come much too close to the truth. "Fine Rory, I like you. Happy? You're an enigma and I want to understand you. You're right, I'm wrong. I like you and want more than friendship. But if you have such misconstrued ideas about me, this could never work." With that, he threw a twenty onto the tabletop and stormed out of the pub.

Rory sat at the table for a minute in shock. Maybe she had been wrong about him. He wasn't the devil incarnate, and she had practically treated him that way. She had let her preconceived ideas about his society cloud her view of him. She was just as bad, if not worse than he was.

She felt tears prickling her eyes and acted on impulse. She quickly got up and ran out of the pub after him. He was a good ways down the street, and she had to abandon all pretense of casually approaching him and launched herself down the street in a run she didn't know she had in her.

"Logan!!" She called his name, but he didn't respond. Maybe he couldn't hear her.

"Logan!!" She yelled louder this time. He still didn't react, just continued walking towards his dorm.

"Logan!" She finally caught up to him and grabbed a hold of his wrist, wrenching him around to face her.

"What?!" It was clear to her that he wasn't going to let her off of the hook.

"God, Logan, I'm sorry." Before she could think about it, she gave into her impulse and pressed her lips firmly to his.

AN: Here! A quick update. Obviously a large cliff hanger, but it'll continue quickly. Consider it a consolation prize for the lack of updates and for being the best, most loyal readers ever!! I love you!!