Title: Another Round
Chapter 4, WIP
Rating: PG
Parings: Rory/Logan with some Rory/Jess (later on)
Spoilers: Nov 8th's episode
Disclaimer: We forgot to mention no profit is being made from this story. All rights and characters are owned by the genius mind of Amy Sherman-Palladino and her writers and the WB. If you want to sue me, I'm in debt…so I'm not sure, but perhaps that would mean you could pay part of my debt for me. LOL

A/N: Thanks for all the wonderful reviews and comments! A very special thanks to waxingmoon for catching our piece of missing dialogue. That has been corrected and Chapter 3 has been replaced. And another special thanks to Jamie for pointing out the proper book title, it was obviously late when I was putting this fic together so the errors were obviously there. Thanks for taking the time to tell us so we could fix them. It's much appreciated. And thanks to our loyal readers and reviewers. You're all great. We appreciate the fact that you take the time to read our fic.

Meanwhile at the Gilmore residence...
"Richard, have you seen Rory?" Emily asked frantically, "Where could that girl be? I saw her last night, when she was jumping around like a goose mumbling about a spider and now she's gone. Doesn't she know we have the DAR event today? How could she just forget about it?" Emily saw a maid walking out of the kitchen, "Bertha!" she called, "Have you seen Rory. She was supposed to be setting up the DAR event today and I haven't seen her." Emily during her interrogations had noticed that the maid wasn't wearing her apron. "And where is your apron? Don't you know that it's part of the uniform. We gave it to you for a reason, the reason is so you can wear it." The maid scuttled off quickly in search of her apron. "Honestly, no one seems to understand anything anymore. Rory is gone. Betty can't wear her full uniform, next thing you know she'll walk out without the blouse on."

Richard smirked, "that would be a sight," and then regaining his composure. "I'm sure Rory hasn't forgotten about the DAR event, she probably went early to set up. Why don't you go down there and see."

"Fine, Richard," Emily said grabbing her coat and purse, "but if she's not there you are going to help me track her down." And with that Emily left.

"We need 8 chairs around every table, which means 8 placemats, glasses, spoons, knifes, forks, plates, bowls, napkins," She announced to the people who helped with the set up of events. "We certainly don't want 7 placemats, and an extra chair at each table, like at this one over here," She pointed. "Lets try to hurry, please, we only have half an hour left before starting time!" She ran around, helping out wherever she could, something that her grandmother would never do.

Speak of the devil, she thought as the one and only Emily Gilmore rushed into the room. Oh god, is it too late to try and crawl under the table? She looked at the table in front of her and started to duck. "Rory Gilmore!" Too late. Rory stood up, and straightened her jacket.

"Where have you been young lady? And what on earth are you wearing?" Emily asked pointing and accusing finger at her. "And why are you late!"

"Grandma, I'm early. I've been here for half an hour. I got here even earlier than you did, I AM NOT LATE."

Emily realized that she was proven wrong, but refused to admit it, and quickly moved to her next point. "Well where were you this morning? And why are you wearing that god-awful outfit?"

"I didn't stay at your house last night Grandma, and I didn't have time to go back to your house this morning, and change," Rory answered.

"So you admit that you were late, and that you don't know how to dress properly in the first place?"

Emily made no sense whatsoever, and Rory rolled her eyes. Emily continued. "So you stayed with Paris again?"

Rory laughed. "Yeah, Grandma, I've been staying with Paris 4 nights a week. Don't you think that sounds more than a little insane? I've been staying with Logan. I've been staying with Logan, at his house, with him."

Emily looked as though she might pass out. "That will be the end of that young lady. You're grounded!"

Rory looked at her incredulously. "You can't ground me! I'm over 18, you can't ground me!"

Emily frowned. "Well, just wait till your father hears about this."

"My grandfather. My GRANDFATHER. I am not my mother! You can't treat me like her!"

Emily was taken aback. "As long as you're staying at my house, I will treat you any way I please. You are behaving exactly like your mother, and I am not old enough to be a great-grandmother!"

"You know what grandma?" Rory asked, and looked at her watch. "I packed all of my things and took them with me. I'm moving out of your house. And I quit."

"What do you mean you're moving out? You have nowhere else to stay, no one to support you. And what is this business about quitting? What do you quit? I hope you're talking about quitting that attitude of yours."

"I am moving out. I don't know where I'm staying but I am certainly not going to be staying with you any longer. Thank you for allowing me to do so for as long as you did, it was very kind." She paused for a second to regain composure. "And, I quit..." She gestured around her, "this. I quit this. No more DAR, I officially resign."

Emily's jaw might as well have dropped to the floor. She was speechless.

Rory looked at her watch. "And I think that I may have left my sweater back at Logan's place, so if it's alright with you, I'd better be leaving." Rory made sure to emphasize the part about the sweater. She felt like she was standing up for not only herself, but her mother too.

Emily's simply stared and watched as Rory firmly said 'good-bye', and turned on her heel and waltzed out the door.

She took a deep breath. "A spitting image of her mother...how disappointing...and we had hoped to save her, too..." She muttered, before turning around, and walking to the closest table, where she plastered on her fake smile. "Why hello, Abigail, you're certainly looking mighty spiffy today."

Logan had just gotten out of the shower and dressed when he heard a knock at his bedroom door. "Hang on," he yelled thinking it was one of his parents coming to tell him for the hundredth time that they were going to go to the DAR event.

Rory waited outside the door, and wrung her hands. She paced back and forth, nervously. She was about to do something big. Something drastic. Something that could potentially come back and bite her in the butt. But she had taken what Jess had said to heart, and she was going down the list, one by one, trying to fix things. She wanted to be more like how she used to be. Certainly not 100 like the old Rory, but at least act like maybe a cousin to the old Rory. Waiting for Logan to open the door, was like slowly removing a band-aid off a scrape. She couldn't take it any longer, and just opened the door so that she could get it over with.

Logan glanced back at the door, "oh." he said smiling, "you could have just come in." He went over and kissed her on the cheek, "So are you DAR free now? Taking back your freedom, or whatever it is?"

She stepped backwards. "Yes, I'm free. She acted like I was her daughter! I told her I quit... and she nearly fainted. I feel kind of guilty now, for being so mean, but it felt so good," She said with a nod, and went over and sat in one of his comfy chairs. "Go ahead, and, um, finish getting dressed, or something..."

"Oh, I was finished," he grinned mischievously, "unless you want to help me get undressed. I was afraid that my mom was going to come in here and interrupt about going to the DAR thing or that my dad was going to come in and tell me that we have to go visit another newspaper. But you being here. a much better and welcome entry into..." he gestured around his room, "my humble abode."

"Uh..." She shook her head. "Could we, talk? Just like... sit and talk, and forget about everything else? Just be...completely honest with one another?" She looked down, avoiding his eyes, and waited for his reaction to how she killed the mood.

"Yeah," Logan swallowed, he didn't like where this was going but he wasn't sure what to do to stop it, "sit...talk." he said and sat down at the chair at his desk staring across at her.

"Okay, here's the thing. I've loved being with you, the past couple of months. You've helped me to do things that I never thought I would ever be able to do. You've helped me to broaden my horizons, not be so scared to do new things... I've changed a lot..." Rory said slowly, and decided to pause, to recollect her thoughts, and allowed herself to glance at him.

"Rory..." he said quietly, feeling a lot of things at once, but he decided to use his brain before he ran his mouth, "are you...is this a "Dear John" letter only without the letter?"

She sighed, and reached over and took a gentle hold of his hand. "Logan...I love you...you know that right? That has always been true. It really has. And I feel horrible... but... as much as I love spending time with you, and doing things with you, and how brave I've become with you... I also feel like I've gone off the deep end, like I've changed into this really bad person..." She paused again, as he tried to pull his hand away. She placed her other hand on top of it. "Logan, I... love you, but I don't know that I'm in love with you..." She felt a tear slide down her cheek. "I'm really, truly, so sorry. Don't think that our relationship was a lie or not real or anything, because none of those are true... It was very real." She looked at the floor.

Logan pulled his hand away, "Rory, I..." he faltered for words, "is this about him?" he asked, deciding to choose to be angry over hurt, "That guy that came the other day? You plan on going back to him? Is that what this is? I was just someone to act like a bookmark until you continued reading your book? Someone who you just had to be in a relationship with, that you couldn't just casually date, and yet this is all for nought?"

"Logan, please don't be this way." She shook her head in disbelief. "Please," she begged. "This is not about him. I am not going back to him. He just...made some things click for me. It was a reality check, really. I just realized certain things. You were not a bookmark. You were... a chapter. A very good chapter, that ended with a twist? No..." She tried to backtrack. "I don't think that came out right..." She exhaled deeply. "I really hope that's not what you think...that this was all nothing," She said quietly.

Logan stood up shaking his head, "whatever Rory," he said finally, noncommitally. He walked out of his room and found his cellphone, and started dialing Finn's number, "I'm sure you can see yourself out." he said to her as he continued to not pay very much attention to her at all. "Finn, hey buddy, remember the twins you met the other night at the bar...yeah...you can set me up with one of them." Logan paused and snuck a glance back at Rory, "either one is fine, they are identical after all." he said and forced a chuckle. He pressed the phone closer to his ear, just to make sure that Rory wouldn't be able to see that his phone wasn't really turned on.

to be continued