AN: there's been a lot of work stuff to get done, and it might be a few weeks of sporadic updates.

Chapter 14

September 7th, 2022

Logan exhaled deeply, trying to gather his courage, his hands tucked into his pockets. Even entering his former bedroom, his and Odette's, was disconcerting.

Most of the medical gear had been long removed by the nursing company, the sheets, blankets and pillows disposed of, but there was still a lingering smell of desinfectant and closet-full of her clothes, her makeup and jewelry box on the vanity table, her hair brush on the dresser - a number of things he hadn't wanted to touch.

He really was past the worst of it. Sure he'd shed his tears, but it wasn't like any of it had been suddened. It just wasn't what he'd expected. He hadn't expected to miss the companionship this much. Someone to top up his wine glass without asking or ask him to sign for a package for her if she was out of town. He'd always been the guy who had been very happy in his own company - working, working out, reading, even going out and meeting people as he went along. He'd never hated coming home to an empty home as much as he had this past month or so.

"Do you want me to do it?" Honor asked from behind him. She wasn't being pushy, but supportive. It was not like the CEO of the HPG that Honor now was often took time off to deal with such trivial matters as helping his brother pack. But she'd always been the motherly kind.

After a couple of weeks of thought, Logan and Honor had decided it would be in his best interest to take a holiday. Get a change of scenery. Think, do something else entirely. He was going to take some time off and just… deal. He couldn't just stay here, feeling like he was stuck in some time capsule.

"No, I will," Logan assured, and took a decisive step inside the room carpeted with the softest material he'd ever had the luxury of living with. It made the room feel fluffy and dreamy. Odette had had a thing for textures - carpets, pillows, dresses - you name it. Logan had slept in the guest room for the past few months, and that certainly didn't have that same feeling.

He could remember Odette panicking that one time after they'd just moved in and she'd spilled red wine on the carpet. And another time when they'd fallen off the bed, laughing, and the carpet had broken their fall.

Their Kensington home, his Kensington home now, was full of little glimpses like that. It almost didn't feel like home anymore.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it…," Honor encouraged. "Just focus on what's important. You don't have to deal with her stuff right now. There's plenty of time for that…," she added. Honor had been the one to clear out their mother's things after she'd passed so she did know what she was talking about. Naturally, they could easily have had someone do it for them, emotionlessly, but these were personal things and they both believed the deceased deserved some respect.

"Yeah, I know," Logan said, as he opened up the folding doors wide in front of him, trying to not look at Odette's side.

"I'm going to order some food, what do you feel like?" Honor asked, already heading down the stairs to the kitchen where she'd left her phone.

"Whatever you'd like," Logan replied, knowing that claiming to have no appetite wouldn't really be taken as an answer.

Honor had been worried about him. While he had kept up with the motions of things pretty much from day one, he hadn't done it particularly energetically and that had shown, it was like he'd been on autopilot the entire time. That until he'd gotten back to his empty home and just been pretty useless at doing anything other than the bare minimum.

Logan packed his hiking pack back, Odette and he having also taken less glamorous holidays in the past sometimes, and packed it with the essentials for a somewhat ascetic hike through Northern Portugal. He thought it was even a bit of a cliche, really, to go on a self-searching hike like that after a significant loss. But since he really didn't want to go to some party capital and interact much, not feeling like he could really be that bubbly person right now, this sounded like a pretty good option.

He'd picked out a trail that went over the Arouca 516 bridge - world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge 175 m above Paiva River. He was curious to see if adrenaline woke him up like it had done in the past. Whenever he'd felt bad for something or other, it had been extreme sports that had brought him back to life. It had helped every time he'd felt abandoned by anyone in his life, it had helped when he had had a fight with Odette or one of his budies, also when he'd gotten particularily mad at his family, or when he'd had a bussiness deal fall through... it had worked for things big and small. It was a crazy week of rafting, climbing and cave diving in Arizona several months after the event that had gotten him past Rory after the proposal too, it making him realize he was still alive after all that pain. After 2017 - not quite daring to think too much about that time - he'd needed more, however, and a lot of alcohol had gone into numbing those different kind of emotions. Supposedly, it had been a good thing at that point that Odette always had loved a good party.

It were those thoughts, that hope to feel alive again, as he walked those trails a week later, blisters on his feet, muscles full of lactic acid and his shoulders tired from his backpack, that reminded him of everything that was in Boston.

After a handful of days he'd found himself at the airport buying a ticket across the ocean, his initial reasoning being that he hadn't been there in a while. He could probably drop by and see his dad and his friends, Colin and Finn, now quite daring to say out loud what he was really in the States for in the first place.

He didn't feel like he deserved to be reaching out, he didn't like the fact that while every now and again he had thought about them, he hadn't actually gotten as far as to consider actually reaching out until Odette had mentioned it. What did that say about him? It just felt like an alternate reality, another life that had carried on while he'd just checked-out. He couldn't deny that by the end there, it had been almost easier just not to think about them, and every e-mail he'd gotten from Rory had felt like a painful jolt, a reminder of things lost. But there had always been a hint of masochist in him, and he was fully aware that there might be more pain on the way.

October 2nd, 2022

"I think this must be daddy's new building," Rory pondered out loud as she pulled up in front of the building on the corner of Derne and Hancock, speaking to Emma who was in the back seat.

Rory realized it was the first time she'd used the term this freely, the concept having already grown on her, but still it felt odd saying that to her daughter like this out loud. The few times between the first time and now she'd mostly referred to him as Logan, both that while speaking to Em and with her own dad, though other than mentioning that they were catching up they hadn't really gone into a lot of detail, and Christopher hadn't pried much, thankfully, since she wouldn't have known what to tell him.

There was still no wave up upset of strange behavior from Em, like she'd half-expected. Some sort of reaction on what she thought of her dad just showing up one day and going on with life as things were normal, with just the plus one. Maybe Em had indeed not thought that much back as to why her dad hadn't been around and focused age-appropriately, perhaps, on the present instead? But she was anticipating the question sooner or later.

"Why doesn't he just live with us? Lisa's mommy and daddy live together in the same house," Em asked, referring to one of her friends, causing Rory to momentarily roll her eyes… mostly at herself for not having expected that question right this minute. She continued to text Logan in the meanwhile saying that they were there.

"Because mommy and daddy are not...," Rory began, sighed, struggling to find the right words. "Because we're not in a relationship," unsure if Em got that concept. "Because we care about each other but we're not in love with each-other," Rory added, just as Logan pulled the door open, definitely catching the second half of that sentence.

"Who's not in love with each-other?" Logan asked, adding "Hi, Em," towards the back seat, wanting to acknowledge the girl a little bit more formally.

Rory blushed, unknowingly, and put her phone away before she sighed and replied, "I was just explaining why you and I don't live together," with a meaningful face, hoping Logan wouldn't encourage that type of questions too much.

"Right," Logan replied, and took a seat on the passenger's seat. "Yeah, you really have to know the other person to live with someone like that. You mom and I haven't seen each other in more than five years so we really can't say we know each-other that well," Logan decided to add, but got a cautioning glance from Rory as she began to pull out of the parking spot.

Logan glanced back towards Rory apologetically, not being entirely sure what he was apologizing for.

"So does that mean that once you do get to know each-other you will live together?" Em asked, being in a very talkative mood that day, it seemed.

Logan was definitely recognizing the look on Rory's face that he'd seen once before - a long list of offensive nouns ending with a butt-faced miscreant coming to mind.

"All yours," Logan held up his hands and shut his mouth, sensing he was clearly not on the right path with his answers. He couldn't help being utterly amused by this conversation, however, and his face didn't hide it.

Rory honestly didn't know what to say. She didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings nor give anyone unnecessary hope. It also felt stupid to assume there was even a fraction a possibility for anything like that from his side, especially as she briefly glanced sideways she could still see that ring on his finger - deceased or not, clearly he was not looking. And nor was she - she scolded herself for even considering the possibility. Being with Logan had not done her good beyond feeding her addiction the last time around, excluding the amazing little girl she'd gotten out of it. And in many ways she was a lot like her mother, whether she wanted to or not, and she didn't feel she was mentally out of her mother-mode enough to date anyone seriously. Hook-ups were okay, not just okay but needed, but no guy had ever stepped foot inside their home or met Em, much like it had been with her mother growing up.

Thankfully, Rory had been busy maneuvering the car out of Beacon Hill so she'd had a good excuse to delay her response.

"Some moms and dads live together, some don't," Rory replied, hoping to slip past the actual question. "Like Gigi's mom Sherry and grandpa," Rory added, feeling rather proud of herself for having thought of that example.

Logan held his breath that this wasn't the moment Em was going to ask him about where he'd been all this time. He had been thinking about what he'd say when the moment came, but truthfully he didn't really have an answer for someone who was five. He had the answers a 16-year-old might comprehend, maybe even a 10-year-old, but not five.

Thankfully, Em was soon enough distracted by someone walking around the Boston Common with a big bouquet of balloons, which naturally made her hope for her own personal one.

"You're getting your very own pumpkin today, that's kind of like a balloon, right?" Rory replied cleverly.

"You know I kind of forgot how nice Boston was…," Logan commented casually, as they drove past James' street. He couldn't deny that in part it was the company that made it nice.

"Well, the houses are kind of nice I guess. I've grown to love the red brick. But I kind of miss the greenery…. And we're the lucky ones with the park close by," Rory added.

"Yeah. It sure is no Stars Hollow," Logan replied.

He almost saw her winch at the mention. Em seemed to be in her own little bubble in the back seat and hadn't heard him.

"A little guidance on the minefield I tumbled into?" Logan asked quietly.

"It's fine… Yeah, we still go. Like once a year… Sometimes less. I miss Luke and Luke's. And Lane is still there," Rory said, tiptoeing around the mention of a certain maternal figure. "We mostly just go to grandma Emily's, she's permanently in Nantucket now. She usually insists we come for Thanksgiving, Christmas and a couple of weeks in the summer," Rory explained, implying that was mostly where she saw her mother.

"You mentioned grandmas, plural, when you mentioned…," Logan said, not wanting to out right say she'd mentioned in relation to money.

"Oh, yeah. I guess with being around my dad more, there just began to be more and more events that brought me together with Francine, and while it's still a little awkward… we're polite and cordial. She likes Em. Likes to spoil her with porcelain dolls and other things she has very little interest in," Rory explained, looking amused.

"Hm-hm," Logan hummed, nodding his head.

The MA Turnpike really wasn't the most enticing road to drive, hence Em chatted a little about what had been going on with her, and Logan genuinely enjoyed listening to her. It was not only the content of what she had to say, but also the way she worded things and her voice that he was studying. He was getting a crash course every time he saw her and would go over the encounters in his head like revising for a test later. But thinking about her, fought the loneliness he felt - after all, besides his online business meetings, working out, and seeing Rory and Em, he really didn't have much of a life in Boston. He was going to have to reinvent his life here.

After a while Em just played with her Lego characters she had with her, creating very lively dialogue for them.

"So, where were we…," Rory began, deciding to grab the bull by its horns on using the drive to talk about Em growing up. This was what they had meant to do on Thursday. She felt everything had suddenly become too much about her, and she wasn't even sure, thinking back, why she had unloaded all of that onto him as if she'd kept that all in until now. And while she had questions for Logan too - she wasn't sure what her asking them would actually say about her. She wasn't really sure what she was after - was it the best possible kind of co-parenting, was it being friends with Logan - was that even possible? Or something else entirely. Maybe it was even safer to keep him at an arm's length?

"Baby years?" Logan replied, getting a sense that Rory seemed to be in some sort of a hurry to get this reminiscing over and done with. Was that really what she wanted? Just to have a series of talks with him and then just distance herself again from him? Would all they were doing going be begin and end at exchanging child-related information at drop-offs?